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A TOOLBOX

FROM THE PEOPLE Vf HO BROUGHT YOU THE
YES m, BILLHIHAIRES FOR BUSH, ETC.

rsimmioivi;

BEAUTIFUL

TROUBLE

A TOOLBOX FOB REVOLUTION

BEAUTIFUL

TROUHLE

A TOOLBOX FOB REVOLUTION

lio Y»

WITH DAVE OSWALD MITCHELL

OR Books
New York • London

All essays © 2012 Beautiful Trouble by various authors
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at
http:/ /beautifultrouble.org.

Published by OR Books, New York and London
Visit our website at www.orbooks.com

First printing 2012.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except
brief passages for review purposes.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: A catalog record for
this book is available from the Library of Congress.

British Library Cataloging in Publication Data: A catalog record for this
book is available from the British Library.

Art direction and cover design by Cristian Fleming

Cover illustration by Andy Menconi

Book design by The Public Society
www.thepublicsociety.com

Printed by BookMobile, USA, and CPI, UK.

The printed edition of this book comes on Forest Stewardship
Council-certified, 30% recycled paper. The printer, BookMobile,
is 100% wind-powered.

paperback ISBN: 978-1-935928-57-7

ebook ISBN: 978-1-935928-58-4

BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE TEAM

Co-editor & wrangler-in-chief / Andrew Boyd
Co-editor / Dave Oswald Mitchell
Master of logistics / Zack Malitz
Photo editor / Margaret Campbell
Web maker & project agitator / Phillip Smith
Art Director / Cristian Fleming
Designer / Stephanie Lukito
Consultant-in-chief / Nadine Bloch
Wordhorse / Joshua Kahn Russell
Fellow traveler / Maxine Schoefer-Wulf

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS

Agit-Pop/The Other 98%, The Yes Men/Yes Labs, CODEPINK, SmartMeme,

The Ruckus Society, Beyond the Choir, The Center for Artistic Activism,

Waging Nonviolence, Alliance of Community Trainers and Nonviolence International.

CONTRIBUTORS

Rae Abileah, Ryan Acuff, Celia Alario, Phil Aroneanu, Peter Barnes,

Jesse Barron, Andy Bichlbaum, Nadine Bloch, Kathryn Blume, L.M. Bogad,

Josh Bolotsky, Mike Bonanno, Andrew Boyd, Kevin Buckland,

Margaret Campbell, Doyle Canning, Samantha Corbin, Yutaka Dirks,

Stephen Duncombe, Mark Engler, Simon Enoch, Jodie Evans, John Ewing,

Brian Fairbanks, Bryan Farrell, Janice Fine, Lisa Fithian, Cristian Fleming,

Elisabeth Ginsberg, Stan Goff, Arun Gupta, Silas Harrebye, Judith Helfand,
Daniel Hunter, Sarah Jaffe, John Jordan, Dinytri Kleiner, Sally Kohn,

Steve Lambert, Anna Lee, Stephen Lerner, Zack Malitz, Nancy Mancias,

Duncan Meisel, Matt Meyer, Dave Oswald Mitchell, Tracey Mitchell, George Monbiot,
Brad Newsham, Gaby Pacheco, Mark Read, Patrick Reinsborough, Simon Roel,

Joshua Kahn Russell, Leonidas Martin Saura, Levana Saxon, Maxine Schoefer-Wulf,
Nathan Schneider, Kristen Ess Schurr, John Sellers, Rajni Shah, Brooke Singer,
Matt Skomarovsky, Andrew Slack, Phillip Smith, Jonathan Matthew Smucker,
Starhawk, Eric Stoner, Jeremy Varon, Virginia Vitzthum, Harsha Walia,

Jeffery Webber and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

The role of the artist in the social structure follows
the need of the changing times:

In time of social stasis: to activate

In time of germination: to invent fertile new forms

In time of revolution: to extend the possibilities of peace and liberty

In time of violence: to make peace

In time of despair: to give hope

In time of silence: to sing out

— -Judith Malina, “The Work of
an Anarchist Theater”

A.B.

To my mentors in the struggle, both far away — George Orwell,
Abbie Hoffman, Subcomandante Marcos — and close at hand —
Bob Rivera, Dennis Livingston, Janice Fine, Mike Prokosch, Chuck
Collins, John Sellers & the RTS/B4B crew.

D.O.M.

For the silent leaders behind every victory “who strain in the mud
and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done,
again and again” (Marge Piercy).

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION / Boyd & Mitchell

(g) TACTICS

Advanced leafleting / Lambert & Boyd
10 Artistic vigil / Boyd

12 Banner hang / Bloch

14 Blockade / Russell

18 Creative disruption / M oncias

Creative petition delivery / M eisel
24 Debt strike / Jaffe ScSkomarovsky

Detournement/Culture jamming / M alitz
32 Direct action / Russell

26 Distributed action / Aroneonu

40 Electoral guerrilla theater / Bogad

44 Eviction blockade / Acuff

46 Flash mob / D. Mitchell & Boyd
48 Forum theater / Saxon

50 General strike / Lerner

52 Guerrilla projection / Corbin & Read
54 Hoax / Bonanno

56 Human banner / Newsham

Identity correction / Bichlbou m
62 Image theater / Soxon

64 Infiltration / Bichlboum

Invisible theater / T. Mitchell
Mass street action / Sellers & Boyd
Media-jacking / Reinsborough, Canning & Russell
Nonviolent search and seizure / Hunter
78 Occupation / Russell & Gupto

82 Prefigurative intervention / Boyd

86 Public filibuster / Hunter

88 Strategic nonviolence / Starhawk & ACT
Trek / Bloch

Write your own TACTIC / You

PRINCIPLES

Anger works best when you have the moral high ground / Russell
Anyone can act / Bichlbaum
Balance art and message / Buckland, Boyd & Bloch
Beware the tyranny of structurelessness / Bolotsky
104 Brand or be branded / Fleming
106 Bring the issue home / Abileah & Evans

Challenge patriarchy as you organize / Walia
Choose tactics that support your strategy / Fine
114 Choose your target wisely / Dirks

116 Consensus is a means, not an end / Walia

118 Consider your audience / Kohn
120 Debtors of the world, unite! / Kleiner
122 Delegate / Bolotsky & Boyd
124 Do the media’s work for them / Bichlbaum
126 Don’t dress like a protester / Boyd
128 Don’t just brainstorm, artstorm! / Saxon
130 Don’t mistake your group for society / Bichlbaum
132 Enable, don’t command / Blume

134 Escalate strategically / Smucker

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel / Bichlbaum
If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest / Bloch
140 Kill them with kindness / Boyd
142 Know your cultural terrain / Duncombe

Lead with sympathetic characters / Canning & Reinsborough
148 Maintain nonviolent discipline / Schneider
150 Make new folks welcome / Smucker

152 Make the invisible visible / Bloch

Make your actions both concrete and communicative / Russell

No one wants to watch a drum circle / Lambert
158 Pace yourself / T. Mitchell

Play to the audience that isn’t there / Bichlbaum & Boyd
162 Praxis makes perfect / Russell

Put movies in the hands of movements / Helfand & Lee
166 Put your target in a decision dilemma / Boyd & Russell
168 Reframe/ Canning & Reinsborough

170 Seek common ground / Smucker

172 Shift the spectrum of allies / Russell

Show, don’t tell / Canning, Reinsborough & Buckland
Simple rules can have grand results / Boyd
178 Stay on message / Alario

Take leadership from the most impacted / Russell
182 Take risks, but take care / Russell
184 Team up with experts / Singer

Think narratively / Canning & Reinsborough
188 This ain’t the Sistine Chapel / Bloch
190 Turn the tables / Read

Use others’ prejudices against them / Bloch
194 Use the Jedi mind trick / Corbin

196 Use the law, don’t be afraid of it / Bichelboum & Bonanno

198 Use the power of ritual / Boyd

Use your radical fringe to slide the Overton window / Bolotsky
We are all leaders / Smucker
204 Write your own PRINCIPLE / You

THEORIES

Action logic / Boyd & Russell

Alienation effect / Bogad
Anti-oppression / Fithian & D. Mitchell

216 Capitalism / Webber

218 Commodity fetishism / Molitz

The commons / Barnes
Cultural hegemony / Duncombe
226 Debt revolt / Kleiner

228 Environmental justice / Campbell

230 Ethical spectacle / Duncombe

Expressive and instrumental actions / Smucker, Russel & Malitz
234 Floating signifier / Smucker, Boyd & D. Mitchell
236 Hamoq & hamas / M onbiot
238 Hashtag politics / M eisel

240 Intellectuals and power / Malitz
242 Memes / Reinsborough & Canning
244 Narrative power analysis / Reinsborough & Canning
246 Pedagogy of the Oppressed / Saxon & Vitzthum
248 Pillars of support / Stoner
250 Points of intervention / Reinsborough & Canning
254 Political identity paradox / Smucker

256 The propaganda model / Enoch

260 Revolutionary nonviolence / Meyer

262 The shock doctrine / Engler

264 The social cure / Farrell
266 Society of the spectacle / D. Mitchell
268 The tactics of everyday life / Goff

Temporary Autonomous Zone [TAZ] / Jordan
Theater of the Oppressed / Saxon
274 Write your own THEORY / You

CASE STUDIES

278 99% bat signal / Read

Barbie Liberation Organization / Bonanno
286 Battle in Seattle / Sellers

Bidder 70 / Bichlbaum & M eisel
The Big Donor Show / Harrebye
Billionaires for Bush / Varon, Boyd & Fairbanks
300 Citizens’ Posse / Sellers

Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army / Jordan
Colbert roasts Bush / Ginsberg
312 The Couple in the Cage / Ginsberg
316 Daycare center sit-in / Boyd

Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal / Bonanno
Harry Potter Alliance / Slack
326 Justice for Janitors / Fithian

330 Lysistrata project / Blume

334 Mining the museum / Ginsberg

Modern-Day Slavery Museum / CIW
342 The Nihilist Democratic Party / Roel & Ginsberg
346 Public Option Annie / Boyd
350 Reclaim the Streets / Jordan
354 The salt march / Bloch

Santa Claus Army / Ginsberg
360 Small gifts / Shah

364 Stolen Beauty boycott campaign / Schurr

368 Streets into gardens / Read
372 Taco Bell boycott / Dirks

Tar sands action / M eisel & Russell
Teddy-bear catapult / D. Mitchell
384 Trail of Dreams / Pacheco

Virtual Streetcorners / Ewing
Whose tea party? / Boyd
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation / M eisel

400 Yomango / Saura

404 Write your own CASE STUDY / You

407 Molitz, Schoefer-Wulf & Borron

434 RESOURCES

CONTRIBUTOR BIOS
PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
456 INDEX

INTRODUCTION

By Andrew Boyd & Dave Oswald Mitchell

“The clowns are organizing. They are organizing. Over and out. ”

— Overheard on UK police radio during action

by Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, July 2004 (seep. 304)

“Human salvation,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. argued,
“lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted,” and recent
historical events are proving him as prescient as ever. As the
recent wave of global revolt has swept through Iceland,
Bahrain, Egypt, Spain, Greece, Chile, the United States and
elsewhere, the tools at activists’ disposal, the terrain of strug-
gle and the victories that suddenly seem possible are quickly
evolving. The realization is rippling through the ranks that,
if deployed thoughtfully, our pranks, stunts, flash mobs and
encampments can bring about real shifts in the balance
of power. In short, large numbers of people have seen that
creative action gets the goods — and have begun to act accord-
ingly. Art, it turns out, really does enrich activism, making it
more compelling and sustainable.

This blending of art and politics is nothing new. Tactical
pranks go back at least as far as the Trojan Horse. Jesus of Naza-
reth, overturning the tables of the money changers, mastered
the craft of political theater 2,000 years before Greenpeace. Fools,
clowns and carnivals have always played a subversive role, while
art, culture and creative protest tactics have for centuries served
as fuel and foundation for successful social movements. It’s hard
to imagine the labor movements of the 1930s without murals and
creative street actions, the U.S. civil rights movement without song,
or the youth upheavals of the late 1960s without guerrilla theater,

Situationist slogans or giant puppets floating above a rally.

Today’s culture jammers and political pranksters, however,
shaped by the politics and technologies of the new millen-
nium, have taken activist artistry to a whole new level. The
current political moment of looming ecological catastrophe,
deepening inequality, austerity and unemployment, and grow-
ing corporate control of government and media offers no
choice but to fight back. At the same time, the explosion of
social media and many-to-many communication technologies
has put powerful new tools at our disposal. We’re building
rhizomatic movements marked by creativity, humor, networked
intelligence, technological sophistication, a profoundly partic-
ipatory ethic and the courage to risk it all for a livable future.

This new wave of creative activism first drew mainstream
attention in 1999 at Battle in Seattle, but it didn’t start
there. In the 1980s and ’90s, groups like ACT-UP, Women’s
Action Coalition and the Lesbian Avengers inspired a new style
of high-concept shock politics that both empowered partici-
pants and shook up public complacency. In 1994, the Zapatistas,
often described as the first post-modern revolutionary move-
ment, awakened the political imaginations of activists around
the world, replacing the dry manifesto and the sectarian
vanguard with fable, poetry, theater and a democratic movement
of movements against global capitalism. The U.S. labor move-
ment, hit hard by globalization, began to seek out new allies,
including Earth First!, which was pioneering new technologies
of radical direct action in the forests of northern California.
The Reclaim the Streets model of militant carnivals radiated
out from London, and the “organized coincidences” of Critical
Mass bicycle rides provided a working model of celebratory,
self-organizing, swarm-like protest. Even the legendary Burning
Man festival, while not explicitly political, introduced thousands
of artists and activists to the lived experience of participatory
culture, radical self-organization and a gift economy. The
Burning Man slogans “No spectators!” and “You are the enter-
tainment!” were just as evident on the streets of Seattle as they
are in the Nevada desert each summer.

Through the last decade, though we’ve lost ground on
climate, civil liberties, labor rights and so many other fronts,
we’ve also seen an incredible flourishing of creativity and tac-
tical innovation in our movements, both in the streets and
online. Whether it was the Yes Men prank-announcing the end
of the WTO (and everyone believing it!), or the Billionaires

for Bush parading their “Million Billionaire March” past the
Republican National Convention, or MoveOn staging a mil-
lions-strong virtual march on Washington to protest the Iraq
War, our movements were forging new tools and a new sensibility
that got us through those dark times. Every year, new terms
had to be invented just to track our own evolution: flash mobs,
virtual sit-ins, denial-of-service attacks, media pranks, distributed
actions, viral campaigns, subvertisements, culture jamming, etc.

As a participant in many of these movements, Andrew
Boyd, this project’s instigator and co-editor, had been kicking
around the idea for Beautiful Trouble for almost a decade before
he teamed up with web maker Phillip Smith and editor Dave
Oswald Mitchell to make it happen. Little did we know what
kind of a year 2011 would turn out to be.

By the time our expanding team of collaborators was
hammering out our first proof-of-concept modules, Egyptian
revolutionaries were phoning in pizza orders to the students
and workers occupying the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. A
few months later, as we were gearing up for our big finishing
push, Occupy Wall Street went global. Suddenly, half the people
we were trying to wrangle modules out of were working double
overtime for the revolution. The excuses for why these writer/
activists were missing their deadlines were priceless (and often
airtight, since we could simply confirm them by checking the
day’s news!): Sorry, I had to shut down Wall Street with a blockade-
carnival while distracting the cops with 99,000 donuts. Or: I’ll get
that rewrite to you as soon as me and my 12,000 closest friends finish
surrounding the White House to save the climate as we know it. Or:
Hold on, I have to sneak a virtuoso guitarist into the most heavily
guarded spot on earth that day (the APEC summit in Honolulu) to
serenade Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao with a battle cry
from the 99%. Or: Shit, I know I said I’d write up that guerrilla
projection tactic thing you wanted, but I can’t because, get this, I’m
DOING ONE RIGHT NOW see: CASE: 99% bat signal. Some-
how, though, we managed to keep moving the project forward
through the thick of the American Autumn.

Beautiful Trouble lays out the core tactics, principles and theoret-
ical concepts that drive creative activism, providing analytical
tools for changemakers to learn from their own successes and

failures. In the modules that follow, we map the DNA of these
hybrid art/action methods, tease out the design principles
that make them tick and the theoretical concepts that inform
them, and then show how all of these work together in a series
of instructive case studies.

Creative activism offers no one-size-hts-all solutions, and
neither do we. Beautiful Trouble is less a cookbook than a pat-
tern language , 1 seeking not to dictate strict courses of action
but instead offer a matrix of flexible, interlinked modules that
practitioners can pick and choose among, applying them in
unique ways varying with each situation they may face.

The material is organized into five different categories
of content:

Tactics

Specific forms of creative action, such as a flash mob or an
occupation.

Principles

Hard-won insights that can guide or inform creative
action design.

Theories

Big-picture concepts and ideas that help us understand how
the world works and how we might go about changing it.

Case studies

Capsule stories of successful and instructive creative actions,
useful for illustrating how principles, tactics and theories can be
successfully applied in practice.

Practitioners

Brief write-ups of some of the people and groups that inspire
us to be better changemakers.

1 The originator of the concept of a pattern language, architect Christopher Alexander, introduc-
es the concept thus: the elements of this language are entities called patterns. Each pattern de-

scribes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the
core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times
over, without ever doing it the same way twice." Alexander first introduced the concept of pattern
languages in his 1977 book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, in which he sought
to develop "a network of patterns that call upon one another” each providing ‘‘a perennial solu-
tion to a recurring problem within a building context.” Pattern languages have since been devel-
oped for other fields as varied as computer science, media and communications, and group process
work. Though we do not follow the explicit form of a pattern language here, we were inspired
by its modular interlocking format, its organically expandable structure and by the democrat-
ic nature of the form, which provides tools for people to adapt to their own unique circumstances.

Each of these modules is linked to related modules, creating
a nexus of key concepts that could, theoretically, expand
endlessly. As the form took hold and the number of participating
organizations and contributing writers grew, what began as a
how-to book of prankster activism gradually expanded into a
Greenpeace-esque direct action manual and from there grew
further to address issues of mass organizing and emancipa-
tory pedagogy and practice.

While we’ve sought to cast as wide a net as possible, drawing
in over seventy experienced artist-activists and ten grassroots
organizations to distill their wisdom, we are painfully aware
of the geographical, thematic and cultural limitations of the
collection of modules as it currently stands. We’ve included
in the book blank templates for each content type, and the
capacity to submit or suggest modules on the website, in the
hopes that readers will be inspired to identify, and fill in, some
of these gaps.

We encourage readers to explore our website, beautifultrouble. org,
which is more than simply an appendage to the book, but in
fact stands as perhaps the fullest expression of the project. In
an easily navigable form, the website includes all the book’s
content as well as material that, due to constraints of both
space and time, we were unable to include in this print edition.
With the participation of readers, the body of patterns that
constitute Beautiful Trouble could continue to evolve and
expand, attracting new contributors and keeping abreast of
emerging social movements and their tactical innovations.

Millions around the world have awoken notjust to the need
to take action to reverse deepening inequality and ecological
devastation, but to our own creative power to do so. You have
in your hands a distillation of ideas gleaned from those on the
front lines of creative activism. But these ideas are nothing
until they’re acted upon. We look forward to seeing what you
do with them.

January 2012

MODES OF ACTION

Specific forms of creative action, such
as a flash mob or an occupation.

“ Tactics . . . lack a specific location , survive through improvi-
sation , and use the advantages of the weak against the strong

— Paul Lewis et al. 1

Every discipline has its forms. Soldiers can choose to lay siege or launch a
flanking maneuver. Writers can try their hand at biography or flash fiction.
Likewise, creative activists have their own repertoire of forms. Some, like
the sit-in and the general strike, are justly famous; others, like flash mobs
and culture jamming, have a newfangled pop appeal; yet others - like debt
strike, prefigurative intervention, eviction blockade - are mostly unknown
but could soon make their appearance on the stage of history. If art truly is
a hammer with which to shape the world, it’s time to gear up.

Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis, Situation normal- [Princeton Architectural Press, 1999].

1 y Advanced

leafleting

COMMON USES

To get important
information into the
right hands.

PRACTITIONERS

Center for Tactical Magic
Institute for Applied
Autonomy
WAG

FURTHER INSIGHT

Institute for Applied Autonomy,
“Little Brother"

http://www.appliedautonomy.com/lb.html

Center for Tactical Magic,
“The Tactical Ice Cream Unit"

http://trb. la/yOmgjs

CONTRIBUTED BY

Steve Lambert
Andrew Boyd

“If you’re doing
standard leafleting,
you’re wasting
everybody’s
time. What you
need is advanced
leafleting.”

Leafleting is the bread-and-
butter of many campaigns. It’s
also annoying and ineffective,
for the most part. How many
times have you taken a leaf-
let just because you forgot to
pull your hand back in time,
only to throw it in the next
available trash can? Or you’re
actually interested and stick it
in your pocket, but then you
never get around to reading

it because it’s a block of tiny, indecipherable text? Well, if
that’s what a committed, world-caring person like you does,
just imagine what happens to all the leaflets you give out to
harried career-jockeys as they rush to or from work.

In a word, if you’re doing standard leafleting, you’re wast-
ing everybody’s time. What you need is advanced leafleting.

In advanced leafleting, we acknowledge that if you’re go-
ing to hand out leaflets like a robot, you might as well have a
robot hand them out. Yes, an actual leafleting robot. In 1998,
the Institute for Applied Autonomy built “Little Brother”
a small, intentionally cute, 1950s-style metal robot to be a
pamphleteer. In their tests, strangers avoided a human pam-
phleteer, but would go out of their way to take literature
from the robot.

Make it fun. Make it unusual. Make it memorable. Don’t
just hand out leaflets. Climb up on some guy’s shoulders
and hand out leaflets from there, as one of the authors
of this piece did as a student organizer. (He also tried the
same tactic hitchhiking, with less stellar results.) The share-
holder heading into a meeting is more likely to take, read and
remember the custom message inside the fortune cook-
ie you just handed her than a rectangle of paper packed
with text.

Using theater and costumes to leaflet can also be effective.
In the 1980s, activists opposed to U.S. military intervention
in Central America dressed up as waiters and carried maps
of Central America on serving trays, with little green plastic

TACTIC: Advanced leafleting

toy soldiers glued to the map. They would go up to people in
the street and say, “Excuse me, sir, did you order this war?”
When the “no” response invariably followed, they would
present an itemized bill outlining the costs: “Well, you paid
for it!” Even if the person they addressed didn’t take the
leaflet, they’d get the message.

The point is, leafleting is not a bad tactic. It’s still a good
way to tell passersby what you’re marching for, why you’re
making so much noise on a street corner or why you’re set-
ting police cars on fire. But people are more likely to take
your leaflet, read it, and remember what it’s all about if you
deliver it with flair. Or ice cream.

TACTICS

Creative petition delivery p. 22
Creative disruption p. 18
Mass street action p. 68
Street theater web
Electoral guerilla theater p. 40
Guerrilla newspaper web

CASE STUDIES

New York Times “Special Edition" web

KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS: ’Nuff said. Pissing people off won’t
do your cause any favors, so don’t piss people off. Disarm
with charm, and maybe your audience will let their guard
down long enough to hear what you have to say.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Show, don't tell p. 174
Consider your audience p. 118
Balance art and message p. 100
Stay on message p. 178

TACTIC: Advanced leafleting

COMMON USES

To mourn the death of a
public hero; to link a natural
disaster or public tragedy
to a political message; to
protest the launch of a war.

PRACTITIONERS

Artists' Network of Refuse & Resist
Women In Black
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Suzanne Lacy
Arlington West
Bread and Puppet Theater
“I Dream Your Dream"

FURTHER INSIGHT

Kelly, Jeff. “The Body Politics of Suzanne
Lacy." But Is It Art? Edited by Nina
Felshin. Seattle: Bay Press, 1994.

T.V. Reed. The Art of Protest:
Culture and Activism from the Civil
Rights Movement to the Streets of
Seattle. University of MN, 2005.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

The word vigil comes from the Latin word for wakefulness, and
refers to a practice of keeping watch through the night over the
dead or dying. Compared to the blustery pronouncements of a
rally, a candlelight vigil offers a more soulful and symbolically
potent expression of dissent.

Unfortunately, routine and self-righteousness can strip vigils
of their power. In the American peace movement of the 1970s,
’80s and ’90s, the “candlelight vigil” — all too often a handful
of dour people silently holding candles — became a standard,
and fatally predictable, form of protest.

An artistic vigil, on the other hand, brings a more artful touch.
This doesn’t necessarily mean costumes and face paint and pup-
pets (though it could). It means thoughtful symbolism, the right
tone and a distinct look and feel that clearly convey the meaning
of the vigil. An artistic vigil often draws upon ritual elements see
PRINCIPLE: Use the power of ritual to both deepen the experience
of participants and demonstrate that experience to observers.

“Our Grief is not a Cry for War" vigils organized by the Artists' Network of Refuse & Resist in New York City in the wake
of 9/11. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Exit Art’s "Reactions" Exhibition Collection [reproduction
number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]

TACTIC: Artistic vigil

A good example is the series of “Our Grief Is Not a Cry
for War” vigils organized by the Artists’ Network of Refuse &
Resist in New York City in the wake of 9/11. People were asked to
wear a dust mask (common in NYC after 9/11), dress all in black
(common in NYC all the time), show up at Times Square at
exactly 5 pm, and remain absolutely silent. Each participant
held a sign that read “Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War.” These
vigils were silent and solemn, but there was a precision to the
message that gave them a visceral potency in that emotionally
raw time, for participants and observers alike.

The most famous vigils of the late twentieth century were
probably those organized by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
a group of Argentinian women whose children were disappeared
by Argentina’s 70s-era military dictatorship. By gathering every
Thursday for more than a decade in the plaza in front of the Presi-
dential Palace, they not only kept vigil for their lost loved ones, but
also kept pressure on the government to answer for its crimes.

The “artistry” of a vigil can be exceedingly complex, or as
simple as a few basic rituals. The simple fact of women wearing
black and gathering in silence on Fridays gives shape and pres-
ence to the Women in Black worldwide network of vigils. Begun
by Israeli women during the First Intifada to protest the occu-
pation of Palestine, it has since expanded across the globe and
embraced broader anti-war and pro-justice themes, but none-
theless maintains its distinctive character. At the other end of
the spectrum, artist Suzanne Facy has created complex works
of art in which victims of sexual violence stand vigil amidst the
art installations that tell their stories.

TACTICS

Image theater p. 62
Distributed action p. 32
Advanced leafleting p. 8

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Narrative power analysis p. 244

USE THE POWER OF RITUAL: Compared to the average political
event, a ritual is expected to have a certain gravitas, a high-
er level of emotional integrity, even a transcendent quality
for participants. Tike all rituals, a vigil should work at both
the personal and political levels. It should offer a sacred
experience for participants while effectively reaching out to
nonparticipants. The more these two goals align, the more
powerful the experience is for the participants and the more
powerful the impact on the broader public.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

No one wants to watch a drum circle p. 156

Show, don't tell p. 174

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176

Consider your audience p. 176

Balance art and message p. 100

TACTIC: Artistic vigil

COMMON USES

To boldly articulate a demand;
to rebrand a target; to provide
a message frame or larger-
than-life caption for an action.

PRACTITIONERS

Ruckus Society
Greenpeace
Rainforest Action Network

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Ruckus Society, “Balloon
Banner Manual"

http://ruckus.org/article. php?id=364

Tree Climbing

http://trb.la/xa9dGu

Destructables, “Banner Drops"

http://Destructables.org/node/56

Destructables, “Banner Hoist"

http://Destructables.org/node/57

Steal This Wiki, “ Banners "
http://wiki.stealthiswiki.org/wiki/Banners

Freeway Blogger

http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

lUlCLEflii

(REE

SEAS

ft** 1 **

* *

Astoria Bridge Nuclear Free Seas Banner Blockade. Greenpeace climbers hang from the Astoria-Megler Bridge over the
Columbia River in Oregon to protest and block the arrival of the nuclear warship USS New Jersey. 1990. Photo by James Perez.

What better way to air the dirty laundry of an irresponsible
institution than to hang a giant banner over its front door? A
banner drop can also be an effective way to frame or contextualize
an upcoming event or protest see TACTIC: Reframe. Banner hangs
can also function as public service announcements to alert the
public of an injustice or a dangerous situation.

Banner hangs can be as low-tech and low-risk as several
bedsheets tied to road overpasses decrying the Iraq War, but
the ones that really pack a punch involve large pieces of cloth or
netting deployed at great heights, often by experienced climbers.

Regardless of the level of risk or complexity, all effective ban-
ner hangs start with a clear goal (you have a goal, right?!), and fall
into two broad categories: communicative (concise protest state-
ments) , and concrete (blockade elements that directly disrupt busi-
ness as usual) see PRINCIPLE: Make your actions both concrete and
communicative. In 1991, in a great example of a banner hang with
a concrete goal, small communities in the Pacific Northwest asked
for help to stop nuclear warships from entering Clatsop County,
Oregon, a designated nuclear-free zone on the Columbia River.
An enormous net banner was deployed from the Astoria Bridge,
affixed below the span where it would be difficult to remove,
and weighted by the climbers’ bodies themselves. The action

TACTIC: Banner Hang

succeeded in delaying the warships’ entrance while educating
the area on the issue.

Most banner hangs, however, tend to be communicative.
Take, for instance, the banner hung from a crane in downtown
Seattle in November 1999 see CASE: Battle in Seattle just before the
opening of the World Trade Organization meeting. The ban-
ner messaging was as clear as day: an iconic visual of a street
sign with arrows pointing in opposite directions: democracy this
way, WTO that way. This was a classic “framing action.” Hung on
the eve of a big summit meeting and a huge protest, the banner
made it clear what all the fuss to come was really about: a
basic struggle of right and wrong; the People vs. WTO.

When there is no crane, bridge or building to hang your ban-
ner from, large helium-filled weather balloons have been used
to raise everything from CODEPINK’s “pink slip for President
George Bush” in front of the White House to a banner deployed
from a houseboat on the East River in New York with a message for
the UN. Smaller balloons have been used to raise banners indoors
in the atriums of malls or corporate or government buildings.

TACTICS

Guerrilla projections p. 52
Giant props web
Media-jacking p. 72
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Framing web

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: If the banner hang requires specific climbing
skills or tools, do not skimp on training, scouting, or the quality
of gear. Cutting corners could result in the banner snagging, the
team being detained before the banner drops, or someone get-
ting seriously injured or killed. Pay attention to changing weather
conditions that could turn a proverbial walk in the park into a life-
threatening situation see PRINCIPLE: Take risks, but take care. Also,
make sure that lighting, lettering, height of building and other
factors are taken into account to ensure a readable banner.

SAY IT WITH PROPS: If it’s worth saying, it’s worth saying loudly !
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing boldly ! What better way to
put your message out there, than to spell it out in twelve-foot-
high letters?

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Take risks, but take care p. 182
Reframe p. 168

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Show, don't tell p. 174
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 1 54

TACTIC: Banner Hang

Blockade

COMMON USES

To physically shut down
something bad (a coal mine, the
World Trade Organization),
to protect something good [a
forest, someone’s home), or to
make a symbolic statement,
such as encircling a target
[the White House).

PRACTITIONERS

Grassy Narrows First Nation
Penan of Borneo
Civil rights movement
Global justice movement
Greenpeace

Migrant/immigrant rights movement
American Indian Movement
Black Panther Party

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Ruckus Society, “Manuals
and Checklists"

http://ruckus.org/section.php?id=82

Praxis Makes Perfect, “Resources
for Organizers"

http://trb.la/yTYBj7

The Ruckus Society, A Tiny Blockades
Book pamphlet, Oakland California, 2005

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

Blockades commonly have one of two purposes: first, to stop
the bad guys, usually by targeting a point of decision (a board-
room), a point of production (a bank), or a point of destruction
(a clearcut) see THEORY: Points of intervention-, or second, to
protect public or common space such as a building occupation
or an encampment.

Blockades can consist of soft blockades (human barricades,
such as forming a line and linking arms) or hard blockades (using
gear such as chains, U-locks, lock-boxes, tripods or vehicles.
Blockades can involve one person or thousands of people,
and can be a stand-alone tactic or an element of a larger tactic
like an occupation.

Daguerreotype entitled, “Barricades avant I'attaque, Rue Saint-Maur" (“ Barricades Before the Attack, Rue Saint-
Maur"). Barricades were a completely new tactic at the time, and spread like wildfire across Europe. This is one of the
very first photos ever taken of a street protest. By M. Thibault.

Successful blockades can be primarily concrete or communicative
see PRINCIPLE: Make your actions both concrete and communicative.
Either way, all participants should be clear on the goals. For ex-
ample, if your blockade is symbolic, it does not require a decision
dilemma see: PRINCIPLE: Put your target in a decision dilemma. If,
however, you have an concrete goal, like preventing people from

TACTIC: Blockade

entering a building, you must ensure that your blockade has the
capacity to achieve that goal. In other words, make sure you’ve
got all the exits covered.

Whatever the case, it’s important to lead with your goals.
Don’t think in terms of less or more radical; think in terms of
what is appropriate to your goals, strategy, tone, message, risk,

and level of escalation see PRINCIPLE: Choose tactics that support
your strategy.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind, adapted from the Ruckus
Society’s how-to guide, A Tiny Blockades Book.

Build a crew. It all begins with a good action team and
good nonviolence/direct-action training.

All roles are important. A good support team is essential.

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Banner drop p. 12
Mass street action p. 68
Occupation p. 78

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Pillars of support p. 248
Action logic p. 208
The commons p. 220
Cycles of social movements web

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286

Know your limits. Make a realistic assessment of your capacity
and resources.

Scout, scout, scout. Spend a lot of time getting to know
your location.

Know your choke points. These are the spots that make you
the most secure and pesky blockader. Choose a spot that
your target cannot just work, walk, or drive around.

Practice, and prepare contingency plans.

Don’t plan for your action ; plan through your action. Think of
the action as “the middle,” and expect a ton of prep work
and follow-through — legal, emotional and political.

Have a media strategy. Make sure your message gets out
and your action logic is as transparent as possible see
THEORY: Action logic. Don’t let communications be an
afterthought.

Eliminate unnecessary risk. Make your action as safe as it can
be to achieve your goals see PRINCIPLE: Take risks, but take care.

Do not ignore power dynamics within your group or between
you and your target. Race, class, gender identity (real or
perceived) , sexual identity (real or perceived) , age, physi-

TACTIC: Blockade

cal ability, appearance, immigration status and nationality
all affect your relationship to the action.

Dress for success. Make sure that your appearance helps
carry the tone you want to set for your action. Dress
comfortably. Ensure that support people bring water,
food, and extra layers.

Be creative. Have fun.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: A complex and confrontational tactic like
blockade requires meticulous planning and preparation, and
should never be attempted without significant preparation, re-
search and training see PRINCIPLE: Take risks, but take care.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Take risks, but take care p. 182
Choose tactics that support your strategy p. 112
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154
Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 1 66
Escalate strategically p. 134
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Show, don’t tell p. 174
Take leadership from the most impacted p. 180
Anger works best when you have
the moral high ground p. 96

PUT YOUR TARGETS IN A DECISION DILEMMA: When employing a
blockade with a concrete goal, your ability to “hold the space”
will depend on your decision dilemma. If you are able to prevent
your target from “going out the back door” (metaphorically or
literally), you have successfully created a dynamic where you
cannot be ignored.

TACTIC: Blockade

Mobilization for Climate Justice activists blockade intersection in San Francisco, 2009. Photo by Rainforest Action
Network.

TACTIC: Blockade

COMMON USES

To expose and disrupt
the public relations efforts
of the armed and dangerous.

Particularly useful at
speeches, hearings, meetings,
fundraisers and the like.

EPIGRAPH

“Human salvation lies
in the hands of the
creatively maladjusted.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

PRACTITIONERS

CODEPINK Women for Peace
WAG

FURTHER INSIGHT

Thompson, Nato, and Gregory Sholette.
The Interventionists: Users’ Manual
for the Creative Disruption of Everyday
Life. North Adams, M A: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004.

Video: “Newt Gingrich Gets Glittered
at the Minnesota Family Council''

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=g80ZsJokBB0

Video: “Auctioneer: Stop All
the Sales Right Now!"

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=u3X89iVIAIw

Video: “Mass Walkout at Wayne State
Leaves IDF Spokesman
Lecturing to Empty Room"

http://trb.la/yWfBd8

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nancy L. Mancias

“A well-designed
creative disruption
should leave
your target no
good option ”

If a war criminal like Dick Cheney or a corporate criminal like
former BP CEO Tony Hayward comes to town, what’s the best
way to challenge the spin they’ll put on their misdeeds? Of-
ten, the scale of the misdeeds and the imbalance of power are
so great that activists will forgo dialogue and move straight to
disruption, attempting to shut down or seriously disrupt the
event. Disruption can be an effective tactic, and has been used
successfully by small groups of people, often with little advance
notice or advance planning.

The problem, of course, is that
not only does the target control
the mic, the stage, and the venue,
but even more importantly, as
an invited guest or the official
speaker, s/he has the audience’s
sympathy. A poorly thought-out
shout-down or disruption can
easily backfire. The target can portray themselves as a victim
of anti-free speech harassment, thus gaining public sympathy
and a larger platform. The challenge is to disrupt the event
without handing your target that opportunity.

Sometimes an oblique intervention that re-frames the target’s
remarks or forces a response to your issues without literally pre-
venting anyone from speaking can be more effective than just
shouting down someone. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
held a rare town hall meeting in San Francisco in 2006 during
the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, CODEPINK
demonstrators — angry that Pelosi was not pushing for a cut-
off in war funding — waited until the Q and A session, then
surrounded the stage with their “Stop Funding War” banners
and stood there, silently, for the remainder of the meeting.

The creative use of a sign or banner can help you avoid the
“it’s an attack on free speech” trap. In effect, you’re adding an
additional “layer” of speech; you’re engaging in more free speech,
not less. Song can can also be used in this way. A 2011 foreclo-
sure auction in Brooklyn, for instance, was movingly disrupted
by protesters breaking into song. Song creates sympathy.

A creative disruption needn’t be passive. When Newt Gin-
grich came to the Minnesota Family Council conference for a

TACTIC: Creative Disruption

book signing, a queer activist dutifully waited in line and when
it came to his turn, dumped rainbow glitter over Gingrich,
shouting, “Feel the rainbow, Newt! Stop the hate, stop anti-
gay policies” as he was escorted out of the room. The video
documenting the event see PRINCIPLE: Do the media’s work
for them went viral and the disruption gained international
press attention, sparking a wave ofLGBT activism. The tactic
of “glitter-bombing” even made it into an episode of the
TV show Glee.

Theater is another way to “disrupt without disrupting.”
When Jeane Kirkpatrick (Reagan’s Ambassador to the UN),
came to UC Berkeley in the 1980’s, activists staged a mock
death-squad kidnapping. “Soldiers” (students) in irregular
fatigues marched down the main aisle barking orders in Span-
ish and dragged off a few students kicking and screaming
from the audience. Others then scattered leaflets detailing the
U.S.’s and Kirkpatrick’s support for El Salvador’s death-squad
government from the balcony onto the stunned audience.

TACTICS

Infiltration p. 64
Public filibuster p. 86
Flash mob p. 46
Eviction blockade p. 44
Sit-in web
Direct action p. 32
Guerrilla theater p. 40

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Points of intervention p. 250
Alienation effect p. 210

CASE STUDIES

Public Option Annie p. 34 6
Whose tea party? p. 392
Colbert roasts Bush p. 308
Bidder 70 p. 290
Citizens’ Posse p. 300

CODEPINK activists re frame a Nancy Pelosi speech at a town hall forum in 2006 with their silent protest - showing how
creative disruption can be an effective tactic by putting their target in a lose-lose situation. Chronicle/ Michael M acor.

As these examples show, it’s critical to tailor your disrup-
tion to the specific target and situation. Often, you can be
more effective if you step out of the “combative speech box”
and consider alternate modalities, like visuals, song, theater,
and humor.

TACTIC: Creative Disruption

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum being glitter-bombed at a Town Hall forum in late 2012 by LGBT rights
activists. Not only did the initial hit of glitter creatively disrupt his meet-and-greet, but the continual presence of glitter on
his person put him and his homophobic and anti-LGBT sentiments in a decision-dilemma. REUTERS/Sarah Conard

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

The real action is your target's reaction web
Kill them with kindness p. 140
Show, don’t tell p. 174
Reframe p. 168
Think narratively p. 18 6
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
Do the media's work for them p. 124

PUT YOUR TARGETS IN A DECISION DILEMMA: Well-designed creative
disruption should leave your target no good option. If Nancy
Pelosi had acknowledged or engaged with the protesters, she
would have only elevated their credibility and drawn further
attention to their message. Had security cleared out the si-
lent activists, it would have looked heavy-handed. Had she left
the scene, it would have been seen as a capitulation. Her least
worst option, and what she chose to do, was continue with the
event — whose meaning was then reframed by the silent pro-
test signs around her. A well-designed creative disruption puts
you in a win-win — and your target in a lose-lose — situation.

TACTIC: Creative Disruption

****

HOSE WHO PROFESS TO FAVOR FREEDOM,
AND YET DEPRECATE AGITATION . . .

WANT RAIN WITHOUT THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.
THIS STRUGGLE MAY BE A MORAL ONE;

OR IT MAY BE A PHYSICAL ONE; OR IT MAY BE
BOTH MORAL AND PHYSICAL; BUT IT MUST BE A STRUGGLE.

POWER CONCEDES NOTHING WITHOUT A DEMAND. IT NEVER
DID AND IT NEVER WILL.

-Frederick Douglass

y Creative petition delivery

COMMON USES

To translate online outcry into
offline action; to make mass
public opposition unavoidably
visible to a campaign target.

PRACTITIONERS

Avaaz.org
M oveOn.org
Greenpeace

FURTHER INSIGHT

Creative Petition: Bags of Grain to the
White House to Prevent War, 1955

http://trb.la/wce Mpx

Avaaz, “Highlights"
http://www.avaaz.org/en/highlights.php

CONTRIBUTED BY

Duncan M eisel, with help from
Pascal Vollenweider @ Avaaz

Online petitions are an effective way of spreading informa-
tion, raising an outcry or putting pressure on a target. But
online actions alone are easily ignored by targets. To translate
virtual signatures into real-world action, a number of netroots
organizations have developed the art of creative petition
delivery. While publicizing your message and the support it has
garnered, creative petition deliveries put public pressure on
your target.

It’s helpful to find creative ways to physically quantify the
number of petition signatures. A number of well-labeled boxes
rolled into a target’s office is a tried and true approach, but
other tactics can be effective as well. For a petition asking the
World ffealth Organization to investigate and regulate factory
farms, the international multi-issue campaign organization
Avaaz set up 200 cardboard pigs — each representing 1,000
petition signers — in front of the WHO building in Geneva,
providing the media with a visual hook on which to peg stories
about factory farms and swine flu.

But you don’t have to physically occupy the same space as
your target. Attracting media attention can be an effective way
to reach a target as well. Avaaz sometimes places ads in news-
papers that both their target and supporters are likely to read.
In one instance, to deliver a petition against nuclear energy to
German Chancellor Andrea Merkel, they purchased an ad in
Der Spiegel, the German paper of record.

Or try a more outlandish media stunt. To deliver a petition
against deepwater oil drilling in the Arctic, Greenpeace Inter-
national sent its executive director to a controversial oil rig in
the middle of the ocean, where he trespassed onto the rig to
deliver the petition to the ship’s captain — at which point he
was arrested and held for four days. Between the unusual way
it was delivered and the media coverage that resulted, the peti-
tion was difficult for the target to ignore.

Sometimes less public tactics can be equally effective: to
deliver a petition about cluster bombs to a UN conference de-
bating arms munitions treaties, Avaaz first digitally delivered
600,000 petition signatures to the head of the conference, and
then quietly distributed 1,000 fliers to conference attendees,
describing the issue and listing the number of people who’d

TACTIC: Creative petition delivery

signed the petition. Even the subtle hint of public pressure cre-
ated a stir in the often obscure world of UN diplomats. The
delivery had a big impact on the eventual outcome of the con-
ference, which did not adopt a draft treaty to allow stockpiling
of cluster bombs.

TACTICS

Distributed action p. 36
Artistic vigil p. 10
Advanced leafleting p. 8

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 230

38 Degrees members deliver a petition of over 410,000 names to the NHS. Their message: Save Our NHS. Photo
by 38 Degrees.

Creative petition deliveries allow organizers to turn online
outcry into offline action. By becoming unavoidably visible to
a campaign target, creative deliveries make sure the voices of
thousands of petition signers are publicly heard.

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: Creative petition deliveries give an
abstract issue a physical and visual presence. Public figures
and decision-makers can afford to avoid listening to public
outcry as long as it remains distant and exclusively online.
By bringing the voices of petition signers to a target (and the
media) in a way that makes them impossible to ignore, cre-
ative petition deliveries amplify the effectiveness of online
organizing efforts.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Create online-offline synergy web

Show, don't tell p. 174

Bring the issue home p. 106

Consider your audience p. 118

Choose your target wisely 114

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 166

Play to the audience that isn’t there p. 160

TACTIC: Creative petition delivery

TACTIC:

Debt strike

COMMON USES

To fight back against
financial exploitation
when many people are
crushed by debt.

EPIGRAPH

“If you owe the bank $100,
that’s your problem; if you
owe the bank $100 million,
that’s the bank’s problem.”

-John Paul Getty

CONTRIBUTED BY

Sarah Jaffe
Matthew Skomarovsky

What does non-cooperation with our own oppression look
like? Sometimes it looks like Rosa Parks refusing to sit
in the back of the bus, and sometimes it’s less visible —
for instance, a coordinated refusal to make our monthly
debt payments.

With wages in many countries stagnant since the 1970s,
people have increasingly turned to debt financing to pay for
education, housing and health care. Banks have aggressively
pursued and profited from this explosion of debt, fueling eco-
nomic inequality, inflating a massive credit bubble and trap-
ping millions in a form of indentured servitude.

Most people feel obliged to pay back loans no matter the
cost, or fear the lasting consequences of default, but the fi-
nancial crisis has begun to change that. After watching the
government shovel trillions in bailouts and dirt-cheap loans
to big banks, growing numbers view our debt burdens as a
structural problem and a massive scam rather than a personal
failure or a legitimate obligation. But asking politicians and
banks for forgiveness is unlikely to get us anywhere, because
our payments are their profits. What we need is leverage.

Enter the debt strike, an experiment in collective bargain-
ing for debtors. The idea is simple: en masse, we stop paying
our bills to the banks until they negotiate. Because they can’t
operate without these payments — for student loans, mort-
gages, or consumer credit — they’re under severe pressure
to negotiate. Such a strike can be connected to demands to
reform the financial system, abolish predatory and usurious
loan conditions, or provide direct debt forgiveness. Strikers
could even pool some or all of the money they’re not paying,
and put it into a “strike fund” to support the campaign or
kick-start alternative community-based credit systems.

Coordination is key. We can’t act in isolation, exposing
ourselves to retaliation and division. Instead, participants
should all sign a pledge — either public or confidential —
to stop paying certain bills. When enough people sign up
to provide real leverage, strike. In the meantime, organize
furiously, publicize a running total, aggregate grievances,
collect outrageous debt stories, and watch the financial
elite panic.

TACTIC: Debt strike

A debt strike is audacious, simple, and easy to participate
in — easier than paying bills, since all you have to do is not pay
your bills. It takes courage and social support, but provides
immediate gratification. Who doesn’t despise the monthly
ritual of sending away precious cash to line the pockets of
dishonest and destructive financial institutions?

Although a massive debt strike has not yet been organized,
efforts are underway. People have been mobilizing for years to
fight foreclosures and predatory loans. The Occupy Student
Debt Campaign aims to gather a million student debt refusal
pledges. Another group is building a social pledge system to
connect debtors by neighborhood, common lenders and de-
mands. Online social networks, pledge-to-act platforms like
ThePoint.com and story aggregators like Tumblr may soon
become weapons on the battlefield of debt.

The outrage, organizers, techniques and tools already
exist, and the tactic has perhaps never been more justified. The
debt strike is out there, waiting to take the world by storm.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Stephen Lerner, “Take the Fight to the
Streets," In These Times, April 18, 2011

http://trb.la/wooXp3

Sarah Jaffe, “Debtor's Revolution:

Are Debt Strikes Another Possible
Tactic in the Fight Against the Big
Banks?" AlterNet, November 3, 2011

http://trb.la/wlMxqX

Rortybomb, “Some Quick Thoughts
on the Notion of a Debtors' Strike"

http://trb.la/ydZE6e

Occupy Student Debt Campaign

http://www.occupystudent

debtcampaign.org/

Debt Strike kick-stopper

http://forum.contactcon.com/

discussion/33/kick-stopper#ltem_1

TACTICS

General strike p. 50
Distributed action p. 36
Direct action p. 32

PRINCIPLES

Debtors of the world, unite! p. 120
Choose your target wisely p. 114
Escalate strategically p. 134
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Take risks but take care p. 182
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Put your target in a decision
dilemma p. 166

Gan Golan as the Master of Degrees. From the book The Adventures of Unemployed Man by Gan Golan and Erich
Origen. Photo by Friedel Fisher.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: While the initial sign-up is as easy as sign-
ing an online petition, unlike a petition, there are potentially
serious consequences. Defaulting on a loan impacts your
credit rating, which can severely impact your future ability
to get a credit card, rent an apartment, buy a car, or even
get a job. Thus a successful debt strike will require support

TACTIC: Debt strike

networks for strikers, the same
way a union has a strike fund to
support striking workers.

Achieving the critical mass
required for the tactic to be
effective may also be a chal-
lenge. A debt strike is only
effective at large scale.

“ A debt strike is
easier than paying
bills, since all you
have to do is not
pay your bills. ”

KEY THEORY

at work

OTHER THEORIES AT WORK:

Pillars of support p. 248
Points of intervention p. 250
Capitalism p. 216
The commons p. 220

DEBT REVOLT: Debt is too often treated like a personal failing
that shouldn’t be discussed in public, rather than a common
struggle against systemic exploitation. We also tend to think
of debt as a non-negotiable fact rather than a social construct.
Once we realize that debts are shared fictions that can be re-
negotiated or even rejected entirely, we discover we have the
power to pull the plug on a system that relies on our sepa-
ration, shame, and consent. Household debt in the U.S. is
around ninety percent of GDP, has grown at nearly twice the
rate of real incomes, and as Mike Konczal has noted, impacts
the bottom 99% disproportionately. As the slogan for the
Occupy Student Debt campaign says: “Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay?
Don’t Pay!”

TACTIC: Debt strike

Student protester. Lack of economic opportunity is a threat to students, but what will non-cooperation with their
oppression look like, and who will it threaten?

TACTIC: Debt strike

TACTIC:

Detournement/Culture jamming

COMMON USES

Altering the meaning of
a target’s messaging or
brand; packaging critical
messages as highly
contagious media viruses.

PRACTITIONERS

The Situationist International
Adbusters
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Center for Tactical Magic
Robbie Conal
Guillermo Gomez-Peha
Gran Fury
Guerrilla Girls
Preemptive Media
Reverend Billy and the
Church of Earthalujah

CONTRIBUTED BY

lack Malitz

“Detournement
appropriates and
alters an existing
media artifact, one
that the intended
audience is already
familiar with, in
order to give it a
new meaning ”

Urban living involves a daily
onslaught of advertisements,
corporate art, and mass-medi-
ated popular culture see THE-
ORY: Society of the spectacle. As
oppressive and alienating as this
spectacle may be, its very
ubiquity offers plentiful oppor-
tunities for semiotic jiu-jitsu and
creative disruption. Subversive
and marginalized ideas can
spread contagiously by reappro-
priating artifacts drawn from
popular media and injecting
them with radical connotations.

This technique is known as detournement. Popularized by
Guy Debord and the Situationists, the term is borrowed from
French and roughly translates to “overturning” or “derail-
ment.” Detournement appropriates and alters an existing
media artifact, one that the intended audience is already familiar
with, in order to give it a new, subversive meaning.

In many cases, the intent is to criticize the appropriated
artifact. For instance, the neo-Situationist magazine Adbusters
has created American flags bearing corporate logos in place of
stars. The traditional flag, which is often used to quash dissent
by equating America with liberty and progress see THEORY:
Floating signifies is made to communicate its own critique: cor-
porations, not the people, rule America. Similarly, an Adbusters
“subvertisement” for Camel cigarettes, perfectly rendered in
the style and lettering of real Camel advertisements, depicts a
bald Joe Chemo in a hospital bed.

Detournement works because humans are creatures of
habit who think in images, feel our way through life, and often
rely on familiarity and comfort as the final arbiters of truth
see PRINCIPLE: Think narratively. Rational arguments and ear-
nest appeals to morality may prove less effective than a care-
fully planned detournement that bypasses the audience’s
mental filters by mimicking familiar cultural symbols, then
disrupting them.

TACTIC: Detournement/Culture jamming

FURTHER INSIGHT

“A User's Guide to Detournement"

http://trb.la/zvA2dH

“Detournement as Negation and Prelude ”

http://trb.la/zTgoFp

Mark Dery, “Culture Jamming:

Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping
in the Empire of Signs"

http://markdery.com/7pageJcM54

Lasn, Kalle. Culture Jam: The Uncooling of
America. New York: Eagle Brook, 1999.

Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter.

The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't
Be Jammed. New York: Harper, 2005.

Destructables, “The Art and Science
of Billboard Improvement ”

http://destructables.org/node/82

Destructables, “Phonebooth
Takeover Tutorial”

http://destructables.org/node/52

Destructables, “Shop-Dropping
Product Lables”

http://trb.la/wLEUjZ

“Pepper spray cop" Lt. Pike strolls through the Beatles' iconic Abbey Road cover, casually pepper spraying Paul
McCartney. This doctored image plays on the popularity of the Beatles to emphasize the callous absurdity of
Pike's actions.

For instance, UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike began to
pop up in some unexpected places after he was captured on him
casually pepper spraying students during a peaceful protest.
One image depicted Lt. Pike walking through John Trumbull’s
classic painting The Declaration of Independence and pepper
spraying America’s founding document, while another depict-
ed him in Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La
Grande Jatte, pepper spraying a woman lounging in the grass.
These images, and other detournements of “pepper spray cop,”
are some of the most visible critiques of police brutality in
recent American history.

1 It is worth noting that the “pepper spray cop” meme emerged out of an incident in which the victims
of police brutality were mostly white college students. By contrast, the brutal murder of Oscar
Grant, a young black man, by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, which was also filmed, gen-
erated nowhere near the same level of outrage. Detournement, as a communicative strategy that
closely mimics dominant culture, often replicates-or even relies on-oppressive cultural assump-
tions and biases.

TACTICS

Media-jacking p. 72
Identity correction p. 60
Guerrilla projection p. 52
Guerrilla newspaper web

THEORIES

Society of the spectacle p. 266
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Memes p. 242
Alienation effect p. 210
Floating signifier p. 234
Points of intervention p. 250

CASE STUDIES

Billionaires for Bush p. 296

Colbert roasts Bush p. 308

Mining the Museum p. 334

Couple in the Cage p. 312

The Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282

99% bat signal p. 278

TACTIC: Detournement/Culture jamming

In addition to its instrumental, critical function, detournement
has an important humanistic function. Detournement can be
used to disrupt the flow of the media spectacle and, ultimately,
to rob it of its power. Advertisements start to feel less like batter-
ing rams of consumerism and more like the raw materials for art
and critical reflection. Advertising firms may still generate much
of culture’s raw content, but through detournement and related
culture jamming tactics, we can reclaim a bit of autonomy from
the mass-mediated hall of mirrors that we live in, and find artful
ways to talk back to the spectacle and use its artifacts to amplify
our own voices.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Detournement is just a tactic, and like any
tactic, it needs to be integrated into a larger strategy to be
effective see PRINCIPLE: Choose tactics that support your strategy.
While detournement can be a highly effective political tool,
when divorced from a larger strategy, it can slide into a tool of
complacency or complicity in the guise of resistance. There’s noth-
ing wrong with taking savage pleasure in subverting grossly
offensive media images, but take care to avoid using detourne-
ment as merely a palliative or a substitute for organizing.

KEY PRINCIPLE

KNOW YOUR CULTURAL TERRAIN: As an act of semiotic sabotage,
detournement requires the user to have fluency in the signs
and symbols of contemporary culture. The better you know a
culture, the easier it is to shift, repurpose, or disrupt it. To be
successful, the media artifact chosen for detournement must
be recognizable to its intended audience. Further, the saboteur
must be familiar with the subtleties of the artifact’s original
meaning in order to effectively create a new, critical meaning.

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Show, don't tell p. 174

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Reframe p. 168

Brand or be branded p. 104
Balance art and message p. 100

Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128

Use others’ prejudices against them p. 192

TACTIC: Detournement/Culture jamming

This altered iconic image undercuts Coca Cola's brand by evoking the company's violent labor-repression strategies.

TACTIC: Detournement/Culture jamming

y Direct Action

COMMON USES

To shut things down; to open
things up; to pressure a target;
to re-imagine what’s possible;
to intervene in a system; to
empower people; to defend
something good; to shine
a spotlight on something bad.

EPIGRAPH

“Direct action gets the goods.”

-Industrial Workers of the World

PRACTITIONERS

The Ruckus Society
Civil rights movement
Gandhi
Antiwar movement
Quakers
Unions
Jesus of Nazareth
American Indian Movement
Jewish resistance during the Holocaust
The Boston Tea Party (original)
Global justice movement
Anti-nuclear movement
Rastafarianism
Gl resistance
Immigrant rights
Earth First
ACT-UP
Mitch Snyder

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

Direct action is at the heart
of all human advancement.

Sound like a grandiose claim?

It is. But it’s also beautifully
simple: direct action means
that we take collective action
to change our circumstances,
without handing our power to
a middle-person.

We see instances of direct
action in indigenous para-
bles and stories, in the Bible,

Torah and Koran, in every
people’s movement and pop-
ular revolution in modern
history. Direct action is of-
ten practiced by people who
have few resources, seeking to
liberate themselves from an
injustice.

People often conflate direct action with “getting ar-
rested.” While sometimes getting arrested can amplify your
message, or is strategically necessary to achieve your goal, it
isn’t the point of direct action. (In most liberation struggles
throughout history, “getting captured” is actually seen as a
bad thing!)

Similarly, people often conflate direct action with civil
disobedience. Civil disobedience is a specific form of direct
action that involves intentionally violating a law because
that law is unjust — for instance, refusing to pay taxes that
would fund a war, or refusing to comply with anti-immigrant
legislation. In these circumstances, breaking the law is the
purpose. With other kinds of direct action, laws may be bro-
ken, but the law being broken isn’t the point. For example,
we may be guilty of trespassing if we drop a banner from a
building, but the violation is incidental: we aren’t there to
protest trespassing laws.

While associated with confrontation, direct action at
its core is about power. Smart direct action assesses power

W ' lLiff FIVEW> m0

msum

Direct action is a physical act that should be designed
so that the story tells its self. It seeks to change power
dynamics directly, rather than relying on others to
make changes for us.

TACTIC: Direct Action

dynamics and finds a way to
shift them.

One way of thinking about
power is that there are two
kinds: organized money and or-
ganized people. We don’t have
billions of dollars to buy poli-
ticians and governments,

“Rather than
deferring to others,
we seek to change
the dynamics of
power directly. ”

but with direct action orga-
nized people spend a different currency: we leverage risk. We
leverage our freedom, our comfort, our privilege or our safety.

As Frederick Douglass said, “power concedes nothing
without a demand.” Malcolm X elaborated, “Power never
takes a step back, except in the face of more power.” Rather
than deferring to others to make changes for us through
votes or lobbying, we seek to change the dynamics of
power directly.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Praxis Makes Perfect - Direct
Action resources

http://trb.la/Awdjso

Gene Sharp's 198 methods
of nonviolent action

http://trb.la/yNUMG2

Video, Book and Interactive Game on
Direct Action: A Force More Powerful

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/

War Resisters' International
handbook for nonviolent campaigns

http://wri-irg.org/node/3855

Alliance of Community Trainers

http://www.trainersalliance.org/

Ruckus Society

http://www.ruckus.org

RANT Collective

http://www.rantcollective.net

Destructables, “Lockboxes"

http://destructables.org/node/59

TACTICS

Occupation p. 78
Blockade p. 14
Eviction blockade p. 44
General strike p. 50
Mass street action p. 68
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76

PRINCIPLES

Take risks but take care p. 182

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Choose tactics that support

your strategy p. 112

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

Put your target in a decision

dilemma p. 166

Escalate strategically p. 134

If protest is made illegal, make

daily life a protest p. 138

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 180

Turn the tables p. 190

We are all leaders p. 202

Don't dress like a protester p. 126

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

TACTIC: Direct Action

CASE STUDIES

The salt march p. 354
Battle in Seattle p. 28 6
Occupy Wall Street web
Justice for Janitors p. 326
Turning streets into gardens p. 368
Bidder 70 p. 290
Reclaim the streets p. 350
Daycare center sit-in p. 31 6

Direct action is often practiced by people who have few resources, seeking to liberate themselves from an injustice.
Image by Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) Collective.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Direct action involves significant levels of
risk for all involved. It is imperative to be careful, conscious
and deliberate about the risks you take. A good action plan-
ner distinguishes between the risks she can (and should)
minimize, and the ones she cannot, and will explain to all
participants the potential consequences see PRINCIPLE: Take
risks, but take care.

KEY THEORY

at work

OTHER THEORIES AT WORK:

Points of intervention p. 250
Pillars of support p.248
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260

ACTION LOGIC: Because direct action is a physical act, it often
speaks louder and deeper than anything you might say or
write. Ideally, you should choose your target and design your
action so that the action itself tells the story.

Theory: Direct Action

NSTEAD OF WAGING AN ALL-OUT

THE PRANKSTER
SLIPS THROUGH
THE GATES
WEARING A

— Art Tinnitus

TACTIC:

@ Distributed action

COMMON USES

To demonstrate the breadth,
diversity and power of a
movement; to swarm a large
target in diverse locations.

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace

Adbusters

FURTHER INSIGHT

International Solidarity work as
Distributed Action for South Africa:

http://trb.la/xlwDYd

World AIDS Day Distributed Actions:

http://www.worldaidsday.org/

350.org, “International Day of
Climate Action" [2009]

http://www.350.org/en/october24

Billionaires for Bush, “Do-It-Yourself
Manual" (2004)

http://trb.la/wEe81W

CONTRIBUTED BY

Phil Aroneanu

October 24, 2009, marked the first 350 International Day of Climate Action, according to CNN " the most widespread
day of political action in our planet's history." Pictured here, Poppy and Jarrah hold a 350 kick-board at the Great
Barrier Reef. Photo by 350.org.

350 International Day of Climate Action, Cairo. Photo by 350.org.

We use the Internet for news, to be social, and to share infor-
mation, but it can also be a radical tool for connecting people
around the world in service to a common cause. That might
mean signing your name to a petition, but it can also involve

TACTIC: Distributed action

taking real world action in our
own towns and cities. At its best,
a distributed action projects the
power of the movement and
gives activists a sense of being
part of a greater whole. This is a
particularly useful tactic when a
movement is young, dispersed,
and minimally networked.

There are a number of
ways that distributed action
can help propel a campaign
forward and bring a critical
issue to the fore, but here are a
few key elements:

11 A distributed action
projects the power
of the movement
and gives activists
a sense of being
part of a greater
whole.”

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Human banner p. 56
Debt strike p. 24
Artistic vigil p. 10

THEORIES

Memes p. 242
Floating s ignifier p. 234
Hashtag politics p. 238
Points of intervention p. 250
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
The social cure p. 264

CASE STUDIES

Lysistrata project p. 330
Stolen Beauty boycott campaign p. 364
Billionaires for Bush p. 296
Occupy Wall Street web
Reclaim the Streets p. 350
Yomango p. 400

The day of action. A group of people create a call to action,
and provide a meme see THEORY, message, or framework
for others around the world to take similar action at the
same time. The fact that the events all happen at the same
time projects a sense of power and focuses attention on
the issue at hand. Days (or weeks) of action can be high-
ly disciplined and structured, or they can be more like a
potluck dinner, where everybody brings the dish s/he feels
like cooking up. Organizers might choose to invest time
and energy in select “flag-ship” locations to help drive the
story and take things to a higher level in a few spots.

The call to action. A call to action should resonate not just
with your core supporters and networks, but should tell a
story that the general public will understand, and motivate
new volunteer leaders to take to the streets. Depending
on the situation, a call to action might have an embedded
demand of political leaders, or it can simply be an expression
of grievances, like the call to #occupywallstreet.

Providing the tools. Hard work, a compelling story, and a
healthy dose of inspiration are the most important elements
of a successful distributed action. But it can be helpful to
provide some extra resources for those activists who have
never organized an action before. This can be as simple as
posting a web link to a few tips, or as complex as offering
in-person trainings and downloadable toolkits with posters,

TACTIC: Distributed action

checklists, sample press releases and more. Some kinds of
actions, especially those that involve nonviolent direct ac-
tion, will require more support than others see PRINCIPLE:
Take risks, but take care.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: By its nature a distributed action is risky.
Not physically, but politically: You put out a call, and people
you’ve never met respond and roll into action under your
banner. Some folks may go way off message or do something
foolish that requires you to engage in damage control. This is
part of the risk using a tactic with such an open architecture,
but should not discourage you from doing it. Most things will
probably go swimmingly, but the more you follow the guide-
lines above — a strong framework, clear call to action, and
solid tools to help folks stay on track — the less likely you are
to have problems. Many groups also use nonviolence guide-
lines or a code of conduct that people agree to abide by when
signing up online.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Simple rules can have grand results p. 17 6
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Enable, don't command p. 132
Create levels of participation web
Delegate p. 122
Choose tactics that support
your strategy p. 112
Stay on message p. 178
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
This ain't the Sistene Chapel p. 188
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Consider your audience p. 118

HOPE IS A MUSCLE A successful distributed action demands
commitment from all involved. It’s easy to feel like nobody is
listening. Distributed action runs on inspiration, momentum,
hope and hard work. If you tell a story that resonates, pour your
utmost efforts into empowering others to take action, and keep
a positive and fun outlook, you can pull off a great and successful
distributed action.

TACTIC: Distributed action

An aerial view of the 344 Oust short of 350) people at the Gibsons, B.C, Canada rally. The 350 day of action was the
largest distributed action ever recorded. Image by 350.org

TACTIC: Distributed action

w Electoral guerrilla theater

COMMON USES

Running for public office as a
creative prank - not to win the
election, but to get attention
for a radical critique of policy or
to sabotage the campaign of a
particularly heinous candidate.

PRACTITIONERS

Reverend Billy & the Church
of Earthalujah
The Dutch Provos
The Dutch Kabouters
Pauline Pantsdown of Australia
Jello Biafra
Michael Moore [“Ficus 2000")
Joan JettBlakk [“Lick Bush in ‘92")
Christof Schlingensief [Chance
2000, Germany)

FURTHER INSIGHT

Stephen Colbert Super PAC

http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/

World AIDS Day Distributed Actions:

http://www.worldaidsday.org/

L. M. Bogad, Electoral Guerrilla
Theater: Radical Ridicule and Social
Movements [ New York: Routled ge, 2005)

L. M. Bogad, “Billy Versus Bloomy:
Electoral Guerrilla theater In New York
City." In Byproduct: On the Excess of
Embedded Art Practices, edited by
Marisa John [Toronto: YYZ Books, 2010)

CONTRIBUTED BY

L. M. Bogad

A group of eco-anarchist “gnomes” running for city council in
Amsterdam; Reverend Billy, an anti-consumerist performance
artist, running for mayor of New York City; a drag queen run-
ning for the Australian senate as the queer doppleganger of
far-right racist politician Pauline Hanson. These are all exam-
ples of electoral guerrilla theater, in which creative activists
run for public office to inspire critique of the electoral system
or the choices on offer.

The term electoral guerrilla yokes two seemingly incompati-
ble approaches. Electoral activists work within the state’s most
accepted and conventional avenues in an attempt to reform
the system peacefully. Guerrillas, in the military sense, exist
on the extreme margins of the social system, constantly on
the move, launching surprise attacks against the state before
disappearing again. This contradiction is what makes electoral
guerrilla theater a wild cardin the repertoire of resistance, both
for the target and the activist.

It is an unstable and problem-
atic combination that can take
all players involved by surprise.

Winning is rarely the goal.

However, by piggybacking on
the massive media attention
that elections gather, a clever
guerrilla campaign can attract
much more public attention
than might otherwise be pos-
sible. Craft a compelling and
funny character that fits your
critique, say, a pro-corporate pi-
rate who wants to get in on the
easy plunder that Wall Street
has been enjoying, for example. Craft your persona, and start
crashing mainstream political events — or make a scene when
you are prevented from crashing. Even better, earn more scan-
dalous attention by crashing your absurdity through the front
door of the power structure by getting a slot in an “equal time”
debate, or getting on the ballot with your silly character name,
or getting interviewed by the straight media in character.

me power or me
electoral guerrilla
is in great part the
fact that you
are not trying to
win state power
but to call its
core premises
into question ”

TACTIC: Electoral guerrilla theater

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Media-jacking p. 72
Identity correction p. 60
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
White plan web
Hoax p. 54
Guerrilla theater web
Street theater web

THEORIES

Alienation effect p. 210
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Floating signifier p. 234

CASE STUDIES

The Nihilist Democratic Party p. 342

Joan Jett Blakk ran a militant, queer campaign for President in 1992. Photo by Marc Geller.

Couple things to keep in mind:

Do what they do but with a critical difference see THEORY:
Alienation effect. If you’re doing this right, by absurdly
aping the cliches of the “proper” candidates you can call
attention to the fact that they are just as socially-constructed
and fake as your pirate/gnome/witch/etc. Cut ribbons.
Kiss babies. Bring out the empty symbolism of these
rituals, and insert your own radical critique, alternative
meanings to them with a few quick jokes.

Combine serious and playful elements in your election platform.
You should actually have a serious point you’re making, and
in the middle of all the absurdity and pranks, while you’ve
got people’s attention, make that point. Jello Biafra did a

TACTIC: Electoral guerrilla theater

★ ★ ★ ★ VOTE ★ ★ ★ ★

^BILLY TALEN

GREEN PARTY Candidate
for MAYOR of NYC

★★★★★★★★★★★

Find out more at VoteRevBilly.org

Reverend Billy Talen for Mayor of NYC. Photo: brennan cavanaugh. Graphics by Emily Schuch.

greatjob illustrating this principle during his run for mayor
of San Francisco in 1979. Some of his “if I am elected”
platform made folks laugh bitterly; some planks — like
suggesting that beat cops be elected by the neighborhoods
they patrol — made folks think “hmmm. ..actually that’s

TACTIC: Electoral guerrilla theater

not a bad idea.” Get people’s attention with humor and fol-
low up with a few simple, radical, The-World-We-Want-to-
See ideas see TACTIC: Prefigurative intervention. In this way
you’re not just talking about what you’re against, but what
you’re for.

When done right, electoral guerrilla theater is serious play at its best.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: If there is a candidate running that you
actually do support, take care to craft your campaign in such
a way that it amplifies theirs, or at least doesn’t interfere with
it. Don’t let your satire upstage your ally to the point that it
detracts from their campaign.

MAKE IT FUNNY: Don’t forget this is a joke. Elections are a
seductive power ritual. If you are doing well as an electoral
guerrilla, you’ll get a lot of attention due to your clever,
critical pranks and incursions into the held of “legitimate”
debate. This may lead to you or members of your crew to
think, “hey, we might actually win; let’s tone this down and
get more respectable.” The campaign then becomes just like
the other boring candidacies, except without the money or
insider connections. Yawn. The end. The power of the elec-
toral guerrilla is in great part the fact that you are not trying
to win state power but to call its core premises into question.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Anyone can act p. 98

Use your radical fringe to slide

the Overton window p. 200

Stay on message p. 178

Play to the audience that isn’t there p. 160

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Reframe p. 1 68

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 19 6

Turn the tables p. 190

Bring the issue home p. 106

Balance art and message p. 100

Put your target In a decision dilemma p.1 66

TACTIC: Electoral guerrilla theater

TACTIC:

Eviction blockade

COMMON USES

To organize a strong show
of physical resistance to an
unjust eviction; to force a moral
confrontation with a system
that operates amorally.

EPIGRAPH

“Home is where the heart is.”

-Proverb

PRACTITIONERS

Take Back the Land [USA]
Landless Workers Movement [M ST, Brazil)
Western Cape Anti-Eviction
Campaign [South Africa)
Abahlali baseMjondolo [South Africa)
City Life/ Vida Urbana [USA)
Occupy Our Homes [USA]

FURTHER INSIGHT

City Life /Vida Urbana, “Resources"

http://clvu.org/resources

Occupy Our Homes, “Resources:
How to defending your home"

http://occupyourhomes.org/resources/

Video: “Michael Moore's ‘Capitalism,
A Love Story': ‘You Be Squatters
in Your Own Home”'

http://trb.la/zpgVWF

Eviction Stoppers of Spain
[article and video)

http://trb.la/zKaVgT

CONTRIBUTED BY

Ryan Acuff

It was a cold March morning in Rochester, NY, when the city
marshal approached 9 Ravenwood Avenue in an attempt to car-
ry out what he thought would be a routine eviction. Instead,
he was met with eighty people holding signs and banners
protesting the foreclosure and imminent displacement of the
Lennon-Griffin family, including grandmother Catherine
Lennon, her three daughters, and eight small grandchil-
dren. Four people were chained to the stairs of the house.
Next to them was a large sign that read, “We shall not be
moved.” The eviction blockade had been organized by the
anti-poverty group Take Back the Land.

The marshal left as quickly as he came, later saying, “this
is not what I signed up for.” He would not return for weeks.

Eviction blockades are as old as evictions themselves,
and like evictions, they tend to surge in numbers in times of
economic hardship. In response to the Great Depression in
the U.S., for instance, the National Unemployment Council
— founded in Chicago in 1930 — formed hundreds of local
branches to organize eviction blockades across the country.
From January to June 1932, 185,794 families in New York City
received eviction notices, and the Unemployment Council
helped an estimated 77,000 of those families keep their
homes. The eviction blockade can be an extraordinarily
effective tactic when it has community support, when it is
embedded within a larger movement or campaign, and when
it is linked to winnable demands.

In the case of the Lennon-Griffin family, mortgage holder
Fannie Mae eventually pushed the City of Rochester to
conduct a SWAT-like operation to break the blockade and
forcibly remove the family. The eviction created a terrifying
spectacle: Special Operations officers stormed the house,
crime scene tape was wrapped around the area, traffic en-
forcement officers blocked access by supporters and media.
The police arrested seven people, including an elderly neigh-
bor across the street in her pajamas. Though the eviction went
ahead, the family’s plight and the actions and goals of the move-
ment were elevated to a new prominence, and more families in
the community stepped forward to defend their homes with evic-

TACTIC: Eviction blockade

Marshall Cooper, 75, protests the national conference of the American Bankers Association in Copley Square, Boston in October
of 2010. Cooper's home in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston was foreclosed on in early 2010. Photo by Kelly Creedon.

tion blockades. The eviction cost the city an estimated $9,000 —
one third the value of the original mortgage.

The negative publicity of breaking a community-supported
eviction blockade tends to make local governments and banks
more reticent to repeat violent evictions in the future. For exam-
ple, just five weeks after Catherine Lennon was evicted, she public-
ly moved back into her house without the bank’s permission and
with zero police interference.

In the wake of a property bubble that saw the banks bailed out
while homeowners were left to fend for themselves, the tactic is an
increasingly effective one for social movements everywhere. In the
summer of 2011 the Indignados movement in Spain shifted its ac-
tions from public squares to neighborhoods, organizing eviction
blockades across the country. Six months later, the Occupy move-
ment followed suit. The organizing potential for such actions is as
vast as the injustice it seeks to confront.

TACTICS

Blockade p. 14
Direct action p. 32
Debt strike p. 24
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Strategic nonviolence p. 88

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208

Expressive and instrumental actions p. 232

Homo q & homos p. 236

Debt revolt p. 226

The commons p. 220

Capitalism p. 216

PUT YOUR TARGET IN A DECISION DILEMMA: Effective eviction
blockades create a decision dilemma for banks and local gov-
ernments. If they call off the eviction, the family stays and
the movement grows. If they go ahead with the eviction and
break the blockade, they dramatically highlight fundamental
injustices in the system and raise awareness of the movement.

1 As of December 2011, Catherine Lennon and her family were still in their home and it seemed likely the
family will find a permanent settlement with Fannie Mae and Bank of America to stay in their home.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Debtors of the world, unite! p. 120
Take risks, but take care p. 182
Take leadership from the most impacted p. 180
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Escalate strategically p. 134
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

TACTIC: Eviction blockade

COMMON USES

To organize a show of dissent
on short notice; to quickly
replicate a successful tactic in a
dispersed yet coordinated way;
to create a shared moment
of random kindness and
senseless beauty.

PRACTITIONERS

Improv Everywhere
Critical Mass
April 6th Movement
Newmindspace
Adbusters

Revolution through the Social Network
Allan Kaprow
UK Uncut

FURTHER INSIGHT

Know Your Meme, “Flash Mob"

http://trb.la/ybFWol

End the Occupation, “8.D.S. Song/ Dance
Flash Mob: Step-by-Step How-To Kit"

http://trb.la/zXeGst

Mondoweiss, “Mondo Award Winner,
First Runner-Up: Rae Abileah and
Colleen Kelly for Flashmob"

http://trb.la/yRnZdb

CONTRIBUTED BY

Dave Oswald Mitchell
Andrew Boyd

Pillow fight on Wall Street, organized by Newmindspace in 2009. The widely circulated invitation read simply: “Bring a
pillow to Wall St & Broad St at 3:00pm. Dress in business suits, demand your bailout."

A flash mob is an unrehearsed, spontaneous, contagious, and
dispersed mass action. Flash mobs first emerged in 2003 as a form
of participatory performance art, with groups of people using
email, blogs, text messages, and Twitter to arrange to meet and
perform some kind of playful activity in a public location. More rec-
ently, activists have begun to harness the political potential of flash
mobs for organizing spontaneous mass actions on short notice.

Flash mobs have recently become a powerful tactic for political
protest, particularly under repressive conditions. In the midst of a
harsh crackdown on protests in Belarus in 2011, for instance, dissi-
dents calling themselves “Revolution through the Social Network”
began organizing impromptu demonstrations where protesters
would simply gather in public spaces and clap their hands in unison.
The result was the bewildering sight of secret police brutally arrest-
ing people for the simple act of clapping their hands — a powerful
challenge to the legitimacy of an increasingly irrational regime.

The overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt also
involved flash-mob-like tactics, with organizers calling for pro-
testers to gather initially in alleys and other protected spaces for
safety before moving into the streets in larger and larger numbers.
Blogger Patrick Meier explains the thinking behind this approach:

Starting small and away from the main protests is a safe

way to pool protesters together. It’s also about creating an

TACTIC: Flash Mob

iterative approach to a “strength in numbers” dynamic.

As more people crowd the smaller streets, this gives a
sense of momentum and confidence. Starting in alleyways
localizes the initiative. People are likely neighbors and join
because they see their friend or sister out in the street. 1 2 3

Another example of effective use of the flash mob tactic is
UK Uncut. In October 2010, one week after the British govern-
ment announced massive cuts to public services, seventy people
occupied a Vodaphone store in London to draw attention to the
company’s record of unpaid taxes. The idea quickly went viral:
within three days, over thirty Vodaphone stores had been shut
down around the country by flash mobs organizing over Twitter
using the hashtag #ukuncut.

The revolutionary potential for dispersed, coordinated action
using flash mob tactics has only begun to be realized. As Micah
White wrote in Adbusters:

Fun, easy to organize, and resistant to both infiltration
and preemption because of their friend-to-friend network
topology, flash mobs are positioned to be the next popular
tactic with revolutionary potential. . . . With flash mobs,
activists have the potential to swarm capitalism globally. 4

TACTICS

Creative disruption p. 18
Guerrilla musical web
Invisible theater p. 66
Carnival protest web
Mass street action p. 68
Distributed action p. 26

THEORIES

The social cure p. 264
Movement as network web
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

CASE STUDIES

Orange Alternative web
UK/US Uncut web

SIMPLE RULES CAN HAVE GRAND RESULTS: Whether it ’s a mass
pillow fight (bring a pillow, hit anyone else carrying a pillow),
or a bank shut-down (get in line, ask the teller for your entire
account balance in pennies, and be disarmingly polite), the in-
vitation to participate in a flash mob is easy to share, but when
multiplied by tens or hundreds of people, can lead to complex,
dispersed and powerfully effective actions.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

No one wonts to watch o drum circle p. 156

Enable, don’t command p. 132

If protest is illegal, make daily

life a protest p. 138

Make your actions both concrete

and communicative p. 154

1 The understanding of “flash mobs” that has filtered into popular culture is generally limited to surprise
choreographed dance routines performed in public. But for organizing purposes, those carefully cho-
reographed stunts are better described as “guerrilla" than “flash.” see TACTIC: Guerrilla Musicals. The
distinct characteristics of a flash mob - an unrehearsed, spontaneous, contagious, and dispersed mass
action - has its own unique advantages, and requires a different set of organizing principles than a
surprise choreographed dance routine requires.

2 “Dozens Arrested in Belarus ‘Clapping’ Protest,” Al Jazeera English, July 3, 2011.

3 “Civil Resistance Tactics Used in Egypt’s Revolution,” irevolution, Feb. 7, 2011. http://irevolution.
net/2011/02/27/tactics-egypt-revolution-jan25.

4 Micah White, "To the Barricades,” Adbusters 94 (March/April 2011).

TACTIC: Flash Mob

JJ Forum theater

COMMON USES

Forum theater is a tool for
exploring and rehearsing
possible actions that people can
take to transform their world.
It’s often used both in prepa-
ration to taking action and in
anti-oppression workshops.

PRACTITIONERS

Julian Boat
Brent Blair
Cheryl Harrison
Mark Weinburg
Mark Weinblatt
Rosa Gonzales
Melina Bobadilla
Practicing Freedom

FURTHER INSIGHT

Boo/, Augusto. Games for Actors and
Non-Actors. London: Routledge, 1992.

Boat, Augusto. Theater of the
Oppressed. New York: Theater
Communications Group, 1993.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Levana Saxon

“The point is not to
show what we
think other people
should do - it
is not theater of
advice. The point
is to discover
what we can do. ”

Forum theater is one of the more commonly used tools from Theater
of the Oppressed. It begins with the crafting and performance
of a short play that dramatizes
real situations faced by the par-
ticipants and that ends with the
protagonist(s) being oppressed.

After the first performance, the
play or scene is repeated with
one crucial difference: the spec-
tators become “spect-actors” and
can at any point yell “freeze” and
take the place of an actor to at-
tempt to transform the outcome.

Forum theater is an exercise in
democracy in which anyone can
speak and anyone can act.

One of the first things that spect-actors realize is that, as in
life, if they don’t intervene, nothing will change. The next thing
spect-actors find is that doing “something” is not enough, it must
be a strategic something. The people acting as oppressors on
stage will maintain their oppression until they are authentically
stopped — and just like in life, stopping them isn’t easy. Forum
theater thus becomes a laboratory to experiment with different
courses of action.

The protagonists should be characters that all or most of the
people in the room can identify with, so that when they intervene,
they are rehearsing their own action. The point is not to show what
we think other people should do — it is not theater of advice. The
point is to discover what we can do.

Forum theater is facilitated by someone called a Joker, who en-
gages the spect-actors both on and off stage in dialogue through-
out the process. After an intervention, the Joker may ask, “Did this
work?”, “Was this realistic?”, “Can you do this in real life?”

Forum theater was developed in a context in which it was very
clear what the oppression was, who was oppressed and who the op-
pressors were: its originator, Augusto Boal, was living in exile from
the Brazilian military dictatorship, and social movements across
the continent were struggling against harsh military repression.
Since then, the technique has been adapted to countless other

TACTIC: Forum theater

TACTICS

Image theater p. 62
Invisible theater p. 66
Guerrilla theater web
Street theater web

THEORIES

Theater of the Oppressed p. 272
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246

Participants in a Theater of the Oppressed program in Toronto, Canada, run by In Forma Theater. The months-long
program addresses life transitions related to family, migration, resettlement and loss. Photo by Adam Perry.

contexts around the world, as practitioners seek to grapple with
the complicated power relationships of more diverse groups of
people. Often interventions will uncover multiple layers of power,
dramatizing characters who are simultaneously oppressed and
oppressing others.

Forum theater is an effective tool of creative activism, useful
for generating interventions, as an intervention itself, and for
building common strategic frameworks for movements.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: The role of the Joker is a tricky one. It is easy
to leave the group with false optimism about what can work, or
to run out of time before everyone is satisfied with what has been
attempted. The Joker must make many small decisions in every
moment, such as whether or not to allow the introduction of addi-
tional characters, whether or not to add interventions upon other
interventions, how many interventions to allow, when to stop an
intervention when it’s not going anywhere, and so on.

Another pitfall is to use forum theater to generate solutions
and then fail to act on them: forum theater “works” to the extent that
it prepares participants to intervene critically in their own lives.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Praxis makes perfect p. 162

Anyone can act p. 98

Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128

TACTIC: Forum theater

y General strike

COMMON USES

To put effective pressure
on a corporate or political
target by shutting down
business as usual; to
overcome the challenges
of organizing vulnerable
workers in isolated sectors.

EPIGRAPH

“Win or lose, mass strikes
reveal the truth.”

-Jeremy Brecher, Strike!

PRACTITIONERS

Justice for Janitors campaign
Service Employees International Union
Occupy Oakland

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Seattle General Strike of 1919

http://trb.la/wMXduW

Movie :"The Corporation"

http://trb.la/xltXye

Strike! Famous Worker
Uprisings (in pictures)

http://trb.la/xmAfET

Jeremy Brecher. Strike! Boston:
( South End Press, 1997)

CONTRIBUTED BY

Stephen Lerner

One-day general strikes, like
those that took place in the UK
and Oakland in November 2011,
are primarily symbolic protests,
more focused on making a po-
litical point than creating real
economic pressure. To harness
the tactic’s true potential, gen-
eral strikes need to escalate from
symbolic one-day protests to
ongoing actions that last days
and potentially weeks, with a
clear goal of inflicting both eco-
nomic and political damage un-
til the strikers’ demands are met.

Strikes can be a powerful
weapon for shifting the balance lww Sabo Cat tells us t0 . strike! , lllustration by Eric
of power in workplaces and 0moker -

points of production. By withholding their labor and stopping
work from continuing, generations of workers over the last 150
years have won better wages, working conditions, and basic
bargaining rights.

It is too easy, however, to romanticize the idea of strikes and
general strikes. Due to the increasing concentration of trans-
national corporate power and various laws limiting workers
rights, most strikes in the United States are now small and rarely
successful rearguard actions to resist wage and benefit cuts.
Workers need to creatively reinvent the tactic if strikes are again
going to be an effective weapon to win justice. In particular,
workers need to recognize, and harness, the power of general
and cross-industry strikes.

The city-wide general strikes ofjanitors in Los Angles (2000),
Boston (2002) and Houston (2006) are one example of how an
industry-wide general strike successfully forced powerful corpo-
rations hiding behind cleaning subcontractors to meet the de-
mands of tens of thousands of striking janitors. Undocumented
immigrant janitors were able to use sit-ins, street blockades and
nonviolent civil disobedience, backed by supporters around the
world, to build movements that could win. At various points,

TACTIC: General strike

striking workers and their sup-
porters effectively shut down
business-as-usual in the business
districts of the cities. The strikes,
pitting poor janitors against rich
landlords, won massive public
support and saw the workers’
demands met.

Key to the success was the
fact that striking janitors con-
tinued to escalate their tactics.

Instead of just engaging in
picketing at their work site, each
janitor, liberated from work by the strike, became a full-time
organizer, campaigning against the corporations and politi-
cians that control and profit from the real estate industry the
workers were targeting. In Los Angeles, that meant literally
thousands of striker/organizers working full-time, day in and
day out, organizing demonstrations that shut down streets and
occupied office buildings while mobilizing community and
ecumenical support.

The strikingjanitors learned firsthand that small, isolated
strikes are rarely effective, but that going on a city-wide gener-
al strike, even in large numbers, doesn’t alone lead to victory
either. To win, strikers need to have a clear understanding
of the target and its vulnerabilities, and develop a plan to ex-
ploit those vulnerabilities. No one action or tactic will provide
enough pressure. There needs to be constant, creative and
courageous escalation.

instead or just
engaging in
picketing at their
work site , each
worker, liberated
from work by the
strike, became a
full-time organizer."

TACTICS

Mass street action p. 68
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Cultural hegemony p. 222
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Community unionism web

CASE STUDIES

Taco Bell boycott p. 372
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396
Justice for Janitors [DC] p. 326

CHOOSE YOUR TARGET WISELY: Successful workplace actions
depend on choosing the right target and determining how best
to apply pressure on that target. The most vulnerable target
may not always be the most obvious one — the janitors had far
more success in targeting the real estate companies in which
they worked, rather than the shadowy subcontractors who
were their direct employers, and who were far less vulnerable
to public pressure and bad press.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

We are all leaders p. 202
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 280
Create levels of participation web
Make cross-class alliances web
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
Escalate strategically p. 134

TACTIC: General strike

Guerrilla projection

COMMON USES

To broadcast a message; to
frame an action; to rebrand a
target; to entertain a crowd.

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace
Agit-Pop
Students for a Free Tibet
Glass Bead Collective
Dawn of Man

FURTHER INSIGHT

InterOccupy, “Occupy ‘Bat
Signal' Source Files":

http://interoccupy.org/occupy-bat-signal/

Video: Graffiti Research
Lab “All You See Is..."

http://trb. la/zpgVWF

Video: “Anti War Guerrilla Projection at
Ground Zero 4th Anniversary of Iraq War"

http://trb.la/xBZvLs

Video: “Projectionists Light Up New York
City Buildings, and Protesters’ Spirits,
with Occupy-Themed Display.” Democracy
Now, November 18, 2011.

http://trb.la/AcfNAg

Flash: Light [innovative projection
art project in New York City]

http://www.flashlightnyc.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Samantha Corbin
Mark Read

Guerrilla projection, pioneered by artists and advertisers, has been
increasingly embraced by activists in recent years as a new medium
for delivering messages. The advantages are obvious: with a single
high-powered projector, you can turn the side of a building into
a huge advertisement for your ((i ifi | >If

cause, plastering your message
on a spot that would otherwise
be out of reach. It’s legally ko-
sher, relatively cheap and risk free
compared to, say, trespassing onto
a building’s roof to hang a banner
off of it. Most importantly, it’s vi-
sually powerful: you can literally
shine a light on the opposition.

Projections can be low-fi or
hi-fi; mobile or stable. Two
jerry-riggers can do one out of the back of their car to cap-
ture a quick hit-and-run photo op, or a professional VJ can
project from a more stable plug-in location to entertain a
crowd of thousands see CASE: 99% bat signal. They’re also a
perfect tactic for rebranding your target. Greenpeace pro-
jected a huge cartoon “KABLOOM” onto the side of a nuclear
reactor to remind people how dangerous nuclear power
can be, and a “We have nuclear weapons on board” onto
a nuclear equipped air craft carrier that was refusing to
acknowledge it. In 1993, the Academy Award-winning docu-
mentary, “Deadly Deception,” was projected directly onto
the San Francisco TV station that was refusing to air it, while
hundreds watched, eating popcorn. Under pressure, the station
relented and aired the him.

Much of the power of projections is in the medium itself. Un-
like hanging a banner, a projection can move and change, and
even be interactive. With a medium so versatile, why limit yourself
to static slogans? On the eve of the Great American Smokeout in
1994, INFACT hit the Philip Morris building in New York with a
running count of the number of children addicted to cigarettes.
With simple online tools, your projection can become interactive
and crowd-sourced. Supporters on the street — or a continent
away — can text, tweet or email in their own messages to be

wiw a guerrilla
projection you
can literally shine
a light on the
opposition, you can
enter their space
and rebrand it ”

TACTIC: General strike

•$

,.^-t

P‘

Greenpeace Nuclear Free Seas campaign: British
aircraft carrier Ark Royal in Hamburg harbor.
© Greenpeace / Vennemann, Dieter

across a corporate HQ in real
field. Small voices are writ km

projected in real time. With a
laser pointer, people on the
street can write messages to oth-
ers inside a building, whether
they’re friends and family in jail
or a CEO in his corner office.

Projections help us up-
end the power dynamic. The
buildings of the powerful can
feel so big and our voices and
protest signs so small. But when
a huge “99 %” bat signal lights
up the night sky, or you see
your own handwriting scrawled
me, it begins to level the playing

TACTICS

Human banner p. 56
Banner hang p. 12

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Media-jacking p. 72
Mass street action p. 68

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 230

CASE STUDIES

99% bat signal p. 278
Koch guerrilla drive-in web

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: The technology is very powerful, “spec-
tacular” in nature, and often under the control of one person
or a small group who could potentially manipulate a large and
impressionable crowd. This power needs to be kept accountable
to the broader group, and should be wielded with great care.

BALANCE ART AND MESSAGE: When designing your action, let your
imagination range far and wide. Consider, in particular, its site-
specific nature, and look for ways the medium itself can highlight
your message. Consider all the artful elements at work in the
2008 Free Tibet projection on the Chinese consulate in New
York: the persecuted Tibetan activist was at that moment liter-
ally in hiding a world away, yet was able to speak directly to —
and literally on — a massive institution that was complicit in his
repression. His handwriting splaying across the marble facade
in real time was at once defiant and intimate. His private act of
dissent had become not just public but beautiful.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Stay on message p. 178
Show, don't tell p. 174
Consider your audience p. 118
Think narratively p. 186
Reframe p. 168

TACTIC: General strike

Hoax

COMMON USES

To create a momentary
illusion that exposes injustice
through satirical exaggeration,
or that demonstrates how
another reality is possible.

EPIGRAPH

“Sometimes it takes a lie
to expose the truth.”

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

PRACTITIONERS

Daniel Dafoe
Alan Abel
Joey Skaggs
Abbie Hoffman and The Yippies
The Yes Men
Mark Thomas
Sacha Baron Cohen
Paul Krassner
The Provo s

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Yes Lab

http://yeslab.org/

A. Juno & V. Vale. Pranks! San
Francisco: RE/Search, 1987.

Mark Dery, “The Merry Pranksters and the
Art of the Hoax", New York Times, 1990.

http://trb. la/ynjM4a

Destructables “Make Your Own
Newspaper Headlines"

http://trb. la/w6s9P8

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mike Bonanno

On April 15, 2011, when General Electric announced that
the company would return its illegitimate (but legal) $3.2
billion tax refund, and also lobby to close the sort of corpo-
rate tax loopholes that had allowed them to dodge taxes in
the first place, it seemed too good to be true. When was the
last time a major American corporation took such a moral
leadership role?

Um, never! The announce-
ment was a hoax, created by
the tax fairness group U.S.

Uncut, with some help from
The Yes Lab. On this occasion,
the core of the action was a
simple press release that mas-
queraded as a real one from
General Electric. An Associ-
ated Press writer, as eager as
the rest of America to believe that such a thing could be true,
picked it up and sent it over the wire. It only took minutes to
be debunked, but in the media storm it created (including a
temporary $3 billion plunge in GE stock value), U.S. Uncut
was able to make their point, at a scale usually only granted to
those who can pay for the privilege.

Hoaxes are one way for activists to “buy” some airtime
that they can’t afford. Instead of complaining that the
press is set up to give voice to the interests of the power-
ful see THEORY: Propaganda model, the hoax puts that bias
to work. By speaking as the powerful, and telling a more
interesting story than the powerful usually do, one can
often commandeer a pretty big soapbox. After the hoax
is revealed (usually within minutes or hours) then the
activists can explain themselves to the public in their own
true voices, with the help of the usually massive numbers of
journalists all stirred up by the trick that’s just been played
on the powerful.

It is generally best to reveal a hoax promptly. The ul-
timate goal here is more truth for more people. At the
Yes Lab, we have an ethos: Never leave a lie on the table. This
ethos is the opposite MO of those in power. The grand hoaxes

wiw notnmg
more than a
website, a phone
line, and some
gumption, anyone
can be anyone.”

TACTIC: Hoax

they perpetrate on the people
— everything from simple gre-
enwashing campaigns to com-
plex conspiracies to subvert de-
mocracy — are never meant to
be debunked. Activists, on the
other hand, generally reveal
their hoaxes at the earliest op-
portunity. Speaking of which,
the epigraph for this entry is
not from Sun Tzu. It’s from
the DVD box of The Yes Men Fix
the World,

Liz, Scott and Andy display the hoax “Iraq War Ends”
edition of the New York Times.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: There is always a certain segment of the
population that despises the idea of a lie, regardless of the in-
tent. If you are trying to appeal to this small, sanctimonious,
and usually left-wing group, you may want to think twice.

TACTICS

Image theater p. 62
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Infiltration p. 64
Identity correction p. 60
Media-jacking p. 12
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
The propaganda model p. 256
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Society of the spectacle p. 266
Floating signifier p. 234
Points of intervention p. 250
Political identity paradox p. 254

CASE STUDIES

Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal p. 318
The Big Donor Show p. 294
The Couple in the Cage p. 312
Bidder 70 p. 290

New York Times “Special Edition” web
The Yes Men Pose as Exxon web

USE THE JEDI MIND TRICK: With nothing more than a website, a KEY PRINCIPLE

phone line, and some gumption, anyone can be anyone. Just at work

use the Force !

1 In 1991 the PR company Hill and Knowlton created a fake story on behalf of the Kuwaiti government
about Iraqi soldiers taking premature babies out of incubators after the invasions of Kuwait, their
story and manufactured “eyewitness accounts” won Bush Sr. the U.S. public support he needed to
invade Iraq, that hoax was never meant to be revealed, but thanks to investigative journalists, tbe
truth eventually came out. that’s just one example. For more, see gregpalast.com.

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

The real action is your target’s reaction web
Anyone can act p. 98
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Reframe p. 168

Choose you target wisely p. 114

Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196

Think narratively p. 186

Consider your audience p. 118

Seek common ground p. 170

Team up with experts p. 184

Play to the audience that isn’t there p. 160

Make it funny web

TACTIC: Hoax

TACTIC:

Human banner

COMMON USES

To make a single, unified
statement with thousands
of people.

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace
John Quigley
Brad Newsham

FURTHER INSIGHT

Human Banners SF, “Over 1000
Spell Out ‘Tax the 1%"'

http://www.humanbannersf.com/

Meloncoyote, “Foreign Mining
Operations Soundly Rejected”

http://trb.la/yZBneq

CBS News, "Anti-Wall Street Protests
Coast-to-Coast: Washington, D.C."

http://trb.la/xkWLTq

Greenpeace, “Giant Melting da Vinci
Artwork Recreated on Arctic Sea Ice”

http://trb.la/wKZ7o4

There’s no law saying that the
revolution can’t be fun — and
human banners are excruci-
atingly fun. No chanting, no
harangues; just hundreds of
people using their bodies to
form enormous words or an im-
age in order to send a message.

I’ve helped create ten hu-
man banners, with crowds
ranging from 300 to 1,500.
Each event was powerful,
cathartic, and the feedback
was always something along
the lines of: “The most enjoy-
able, most fun, best demon-
stration I’ve ever been to!”

The human banner is a
powerful, expressive tactic. It
has some of the political virtues
of a rally: it turns out numbers

“A human banner
can be spur of
the moment -
a milling crowd
can be quickly
arranged and
photographed from
a nearby building
or lamppost -
but conscientious
planning can
produce staggering
works of aerial art. "

Iowa National Guard,
“The Camp Dodge Story”

http://trb. Ia/x2qt51

Spectral Q: Collaborative Art
for the Common Good

http://spectralq.com/Home.html

CONTRIBUTED BY

Brad Newsham

CODEPINK 2006.

TACTIC: Human banner

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Artistic vigil p. 10
Banner hang p. 12
Art intervention web

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

"Tax the 1%” human banner organized by The Other 98%, 2011. ( The other 1% remains unaccounted for.)

that physically demonstrate public support and the movement’s
ability to mobilize, but it does so with elegance, like a work of
art.

It works well for media coverage, too. Journalists need fresh
story angles and compelling visuals, and the human banner
delivers: it’s unusual, remarkable, notable, people-powered,
and made up of a thousand individual human interest stories.
And when composed correctly, it delivers the money shot the
media is always looking for: a single iconic photo that speaks
for itself, that tells the whole story on its own see THEORY: Ac-
tion Logic.

A human banner can be spur of the moment — a mill-
ing crowd can be quickly arranged and photographed from
a nearby building or lamppost — but conscientious planning
can produce staggering works of aerial art.

Here are some things to keep in mind when planning your
human banner:

The slogan/image: Your image needs to communicate your
message concisely and powerfully. Words and symbols are
easiest to lay out, pictures trickier. You want viewers to get
your message on first blink, and gasp at its beauty, audac-
ity, and clarity.

The site: An iconic background anchors your photo to a
place. Murals can be created on sand (etch the outlines

TACTIC: Human banner

before the crowd arrives), on grass (mark it with ropes or
string), on pavement (chalk). A football field-sized area
works well. My preferred font size for lettering is 100 feet
tall, ten feet wide.

Photography: Video is nice, but getting at least one great
photo is your goal. A helicopter gives optimal photograph-
ic maneuverability, but other possibilities include small
planes, tall buildings, cranes and camera-balloons.

Crowd: You’ll definitely want enough folks to fill in your
lettering, plus a cadre of event volunteers. Pre-registration
prevents last-minute scrambling — or, worse, a “thin,”
scraggly image. Focus on designing an event you’d be ex-
cited to attend. Nail the details.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: It’s easy to get grandiose in your plans,
but complexity doesn’t scale well. Keep it simple. Or if you do
want to get complicated, test drive a smaller version first, then
plan meticulously.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 188
Show, don’t tell p. 174
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Balance art and message p. 100

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FOR THEM: A human banner allows you
to tell an entire story in one stunning image, but you’ll likely
have to deliver that image yourself. Invite the media along,
but don’t expect them to bring a helicopter. After the event,
with aerial photo and press release in hand, you’ll have a
ready-for-prime-time package.

TACTIC: Human banner

Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man on Arctic Sea Ice. Artist John Quigley in coordination with Greenpeace. Photo by Nick
Cobbing. (Copper and Arctic Sea ice)

TACTIC: Human banner

TACTIC:

Identity correction

COMMON USES

To embarrass your target;
to correct the public record;
to expose corporate malfea-
sance; to reframe an issue.

EPIGRAPH

“Artists use lies to tell the truth.
Yes, I created a lie. But because
you believed it, you found
something true about yourself.”

-Alan Moore

PRACTITIONERS

Yes Men
Yippies
Situationists
Gonzo journalists

FURTHER INSIGHT

Destructables, “How to
Crash a Conference"

http://trb.la/wjHlm R

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy B ichlbaum

“By catching
powerful entities
off-guard , you
can momentarily
expose them to
public scrutiny.”

When trying to understand how a machine works, it helps to
expose its guts. The same can be said of powerful people or
corporations who enrich themselves at the expense of every-
one else. By catching power-
ful entities off-guard — say, by
speaking on their behalf about
wonderful things they should
do (but in reality won’t) — you
can momentarily expose them
to public scrutiny. In this way,
everyone gets to see how they
work and can figure out how
better to oppose them.

This is identity correction: exposing an entity’s inner
workings to public scrutiny. To practice it, find a target — some
entity running amok — and think of something true they could
say but never would — something that’s also lots of fun. What
you say can either be something your target would say if its PR
department went absent or berserk (modest proposal) , or things
they would say if by some miracle they decided to do the right
thing (honest proposal) . Instead of speaking truth to power, as
the Quakers suggest, you assume the mask of power to speak a
little lie that tells a greater truth.

The modest proposal approach — which the Yes Men and
others have used on many occasions to impersonate companies
and parody them — can be a hit-or-miss affair. It usually in-
volves an absurd and extreme — but logical — extension of the
entity’s current practices, like when the Billionaires for Bush
put Social Security up for sale on eBay, or when the Yes Men
suggested that CEOs in the West would want to remotely moni-
tor and control workers in factories in Africa via a control panel
mounted on a huge golden phallus.

In spite of the emotionally satisfying payoff of antics like
those, it’s the honest proposal approach — assuming the identity
of a big evildoer and announcing they’re doing something
wonderful — that has proven to be the more effective way
to embarrass a target. When the Yes Men impersonated Dow
Chemical on the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal catastro-
phe and announced on Dow’s behalf that it was finally taking

TACTIC: Identity correction

responsibility for the disaster see CASE: Dow Chemical apologizes
for Bhopal, or when U.S. Uncut activists announced that GE
was paying its 2010 taxes after all see TACTIC: Hoax ; or when
activists impersonating French officials announced that Haiti’s
debt — imposed when Haiti won independence from France,
to compensate French slaveowners for their lost “property” —
would at long last be forgiven; or when environmental activists
impersonated Canada (in one case) or the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce (in another) and announced surprising and won-
derful things. . . In all these cases, the consequences were im-
mediate: voluminous news reports about the unlikely turn of
events (and, in the Dow and GE cases, giant temporary drops
in each company’s stock value) . These in turn provided fodder
for a wave of other articles about the whole hoax, providing
a media platform for the reform programs of campaigners
working on these issues.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Getting caught by the real folks you are im-
personating. Not really a pitfall, just a plot twist.

TACTICS

Hoax p. 54

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Infiltration p. 64
Electoral Guerrilla Theater p. 40
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208

Points of intervention p. 250

Alienation effect p. 210

Ethical spectacle p. 230

Capitalism p. 216

Society of the spectacle p. 266

CASE STUDIES

Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal p. 318
Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282
Billionaires for Bush p. 296
New York Times “Special Edition” web
Survivaballs take the UN by storm web

THE REAL ACTION IS YOUR TARGET’S REACTION: Often the most
revealing moment in a successful identity correction is the
reaction of the target. When you identity-correct a major
corporation, you force them to react. They can’t let the lie that
tells the truth stand in the media. GE had to tell the press it
was NOT returning its questionable tax refund to stand in soli-
darity with struggling Americans. Dow Chemical had to issue
a statement indicating it had NOT apologized for the Bhopal
disaster and would NOT be compensating the victims.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 16 6

Reframe p. 168

Show, don't tell p. 174

Anyone can act p. 98

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160

Turn the tables p. 190

Do the media's work for them p.124

Use others' prejudices against them p. 192

Make the invisible visible p. 152

TACTIC: Identity correction

TACTIC:

Image theater

COMMON USES

To foster dialogue and
develop action strategies; to
create a compelling public
image in a direct action.

PRACTITIONERS

Julian Boat
Brent Blair
Cheryl Harrison
Mark Weinburg
Mark Weinblatt
Rosa Gonzales
Melina Bobadilla
Jiwon Chung
Practicing Freedom

FURTHER INSIGHT

Boo/, Augusto. Games for Actors and
Non-Actors. London: Rout/edge, 1992.

Boat, Augusto. Theater of the
Oppressed. New York: Theater
Communications Group, 1993.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Levana Saxon

Image theater, a social change tool developed by Augusto
Boal, is one of the more widely used forms of Theater of
the Oppressed, in which activists, students or any group are
invited to form statues that represent a moment in time of an
oppressive situation. The image can then serve as a spring-
board for critical group reflection in order to both under-
stand the situation better and to try out possible “solutions.”
Through the process of creating and working with the image,
participants can decode the situation, dissecting each char-
acter’s personality, motivation and range of possible actions.
Insofar as the participants identify with the characters, they
can explore possible actions that they themselves can take
in their lives.

Image theater is similar to forum theater in every way,
except that everyone is holding still. This allows for both faster
development and use of the process: whereas forum theater
often involves a small team that develops and rehearses a
skit for months, image theater can be created on the spot,
collaboratively. In this way, image theater is an incredibly
accessible tool to use in trainings, strategy development
and direct actions.

For example, at a 2005 rally to support a disruption of a
Chevron shareholder meeting in San Rafael, California, all
demonstrators present were invited to form an image to depict
the entire oil industry, including the characters who benefit
from it, are oppressed by it, or are bystanders of it. Portrayed
in the image were drivers, oil tycoons, media, and impacted
communities (people from Nigeria and Ecuador were pres-
ent to represent themselves). Even water and the Earth were
included as characters. Once people were satisfied that the
image represented reality, they shared their character’s
thoughts and motivations. The few people left in the rally
who were not part of the image were then asked to take ten
seconds each to intervene in the image in an attempt to trans-
form the oil industry by reshaping the characters whom they
believed were the critical agents of change. Everyone could
see plainly what actions could or could not get us to the “ideal
image.” Within twenty-five minutes, the group had arrived at
goals, possible tactics and next steps.

TACTIC: Image theater

While image theater starts with a frozen image, it quickly
moves toward interventions by participants, acting in character,
to collaboratively and spontaneously name their oppression
and its source, and then explore courses of action. The final
stage is to reflect on what happened with participants and, if
appropriate, write up the actions that seem most viable.

TACTICS

Forum theater p. 48
Invisible theater p. 66

PRINCIPLES

Praxis makes perfect p. 162

Anyone can act p. 98

Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128

THEORIES

Theater of the Oppressed p. 272
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246

Image theater is an incredibly accessible tool to use in trainings, strategy development and direct actions. Theater
games like the one pictured above, by theater of the Oppressed in Paris, 1975, can help to warm participants up to
make full use of the form. Photo by Cedoc-Funarte.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: When creating an image that involves
representing people who are not present, stereotypes of those
people commonly surface. This can be problematic when par-
ticipants begin manipulating the image and the actor tries
to imagine what is going on in that person’s head. With op-
pressor characters, this makes for an unrealistic laboratory
in which to experiment with actions. With oppressed charac-
ters, it can perpetuate the dehumanizing stereotypes that fuel
their oppression in the first place. This pitfall can be avoided
by directing the action toward the people in the room, which
image theater is specifically designed to do.

TACTIC: Image theater

Infiltration

COMMON USES

To learn from, expose, or
disrupt the meetings
of the powerful.

PRACTITIONERS

Yes Men
Tim DeChristopher

FURTHER INSIGHT

Destructables, “How to
Crash a Conference"

http://trb.la/wjHlmR

Huffington Post, “Karl Rove Gets ‘M ic
Checked By Occupy Baltimore At
Otherwise Dull-Sounding Symposium”

http://trb. la/AsqoqE

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum

Cops and other agents of the
state are always inhitrating our
get-togethers, both for intelli-
gence-gathering and in order
to disrupt our work. Given how
successful this tactic has proven
when used against us, it only
makes sense that we would re-
spond in kind.

Why sneak into a meeting
or conference? Maybe simply to
see what’s going on, or to play
a trick of some sort. You might
not even know in advance what
the trick will be. In 2004, Mike
Bonnano and I snuck into the
Heritage Foundation luncheon

“It’s not the
audience in the
room that you’re
most concerned
with , but the
audience who will
see your footage,
read the press
release, or benefit
from the secrets
you’ve liberated.’’

for conservative think tanks

just to get acquainted with that world, and on the spur of the
moment, seeing Ed Meese sitting next to the podium, I stepped
up to the unguarded microphone and proceeded to nominate
him for President. His reaction on camera is priceless.

Again and again, the Yes Men have successfully imperson-
ated corporate presenters at conferences and pulled off some
very revealing stunts see CASE STUDY: The Yes Men Pose as Exxon.

A completely different approach is to stage a guerrilla
musical in the middle of the keynote speech of an evil lobbyist.
That’s what health care activists did at a major insurance in-
dustry conference in 2009 see CASE STUDY: Public Option Annie.

Always make sure that one or more of your team is Riming
your action. Remember: it’s not the audience there in the room
that you’re most concerned with, but the audience who will see
your footage, read the press release, or benefit from the secrets
you’ve liberated from behind closed doors see: PRINCIPLE: Play
to the audience that isn’t there.

In many cases, at least for run-of-the-mill conferences, the
actual sneaking-in is so easy it’s almost an afterthought. Sim-
ply walk up to the table near the entrance that’s full of name
badges; choose one, and say it’s yours (and, if asked, say you’ve

TACTIC: Infiltration

forgotten your business cards). Take the conference materials
you’ll be graciously offered along with the badge, and proceed
inside, or, if you like, to your nearest copy shop to make a bunch
of other badges with other names for your pals. Alternately,
come to the table after the initial registration rush is over, per-
haps midday (when only a few tags are left, probably belonging
to no-shows) , observe a tag, and then run out and print a few
business cards (a sheet of pre-perforated cards and a copy shop
will do the trick) . Return and claim your badge.

TACTICS

Media-jacking p. 72
Creative disruption p. 18
Hoax p. 54

DO THE MEDIA'S WORK FOR THEM: No matter what you do when
you’re inside the conference — whether impersonating your
enemy or singing at them — it’s not likely to be perfect in the
actual space and moment. A fake speech might go on too long,
some singing voices may not be loud enough to hear, etc. That’s
why you’ll want to document it yourself. By the same token,
you’ll want to set up the action not for maximum impact in the
moment, but for how you want it to be seen and heard via the
photos and videos that you take and later supply to the press.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Anyone can act p. 98

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160

Do the media's work for them p. 124

The real action is in your target’s reaction web

Make it funny web

THEORIES

Acton logic p. 208

Points of intervention p. 250

The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Bidder 70 p. 290
Public Option Annie p. 346
Yes Men pose as Exxon web

TACTIC: Infiltration

TACTIC:

Invisible theater

COMMON USES

To pose a moral dilemma in
the midst of everyday life -
this can be particularly useful
on a topic that people might
normally be “too polite” to
bring up, such as poverty,
racism or homophobia.

PRACTITIONERS

Augusto Boal
David Diamond
Improv Everywhere

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “Primetime from ABC
News: Gay Parents Bashed"

http://trb. la/zt3L7P

Burstow, Bonnie. “Invisible theater,
Ethics, and the Adult Educator.”
International Journal of
Lifelong Education 27, no. 3
(May-June 2008]: 273-88.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Tracey Mitchell

You’re dining in a restaurant when suddenly a lesbian couple
and their two children, dining nearby, are accosted by a
homophobic server. “These children need a father,” she says.
“You’re making everyone else here uncomfortable.” Other
customers chime-in in agreement, while still others leap to
the defense of the family. Some of these people are actors, the
rest, including you, are unwittingly participating in an invis-
ible theater performance.

Invisible theateris theater that
seeks never to be recognized as
theater, performed in a pub-
lic place. The goal is to make
the intervention as realistic as
possible so that it provokes
spontaneous responses. The
scene must be loud enough to
be heard and noticed by people,
but not so loud or conspicuous
that it appears staged. Bystanders
can and will engage with the
scene as if it were real life,
because for them it is real life. Invisible theater can thus
achieve things that most other theater cannot, removing
barriers between performer and spectator and creating very
accessible conflictual situations in which people can rethink
their assumptions and engage with sensitive issues they might
otherwise avoid.

Invisible theater is one of Augusto Boal’s Theater of the
Oppressed techniques, and has been used around the world
in many different settings. In New York City in 2003, actors
posing as tourists made loud comments about the potential
terrorist threat posed by two Muslim women in hijab (also
actors) who were taking photos of the Empire State Building.
This scene sparked important dialogue about racial profiling
and the “War on Terror.” In other instances, actors posing as
customers in restaurants and grocery stores have claimed not
to be able to afford their bill, sparking a dialogue with the
cashier and nearby customers (some of them also actors)
about questions of economic justice.

Your mvismie
theater

performance is
only as strong
as the reaction or
thought process
it provokes in
your audience ”

TACTIC: Invisible theater

Invisible theater requires a significant amount of prepa-
ration and rehearsal. The form requires actors to remain in
character even when the action goes in unexpected and chal-
lenging directions. In its pure form, invisible theater never
lets on that it is theater. Unlike other stealth theater forms like
guerrilla theater, Yes Men-style hoaxes or Improv Everywhere
pranks, there is never “a reveal.” People who encounter an
invisible theater performance should experience it as reality
and forever after think it was real.

TACTICS

Guerrilla musical web
Guerrilla theater web
Street theater web
Forum theater p. 48
Image theater p. 62

THEORIES

Theater of the Oppressed p. 272

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Invisible theater carries with it significant
ethical and safety considerations, which should be explored
carefully before choosing this tactic. Actors should rehearse a
range of observer reactions, including aggression and abuse,
and should be prepared to roll with the punches (sometimes
literally!). Having an escape plan or distress signal, and
discussing ahead of time if or when to break character, is also
advisable see PRINCIPLE: Take risks, but take care.

CASE STUDIES

The Big Donor Show p. 294
Santa Claus army p. 358
Operation First Casualty web

THE REAL ACTION IS YOUR TARGET’S REACTION: While part of the
beauty of invisible theater is its spontaneity, it is also important
to anticipate and rehearse potential audience responses. It is a
good idea to test out your scene with people who did not par-
ticipate in its creation to see what responses it provokes. Your
invisible theater performance is only as strong as the reaction or
thought process it provokes in your audience.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Think narratively p. 18 6

Anyone can act p. 98

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Take risks, but take care p. 182

1 This scenario was played out on the ABC News Show What Would You Do? which uses a version of invisible theater
to generate discussion. While the show breaks the usual rules of invisible theater by surreptitiously filming the scene
and eventually telling those present that the scene is not real, it is nevertheless a good introduction to the power and
possibility of invisible theater.

TACTIC: Invisible theater

D Mass Street Action

COMMON USES

To pressure a corporate or
government target with a
mass of people in the street
telling a unified story.

PRACTITIONERS

Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement
Direct Action Network
The Other 98%
Alliance of Community Trainers
United for Peace and Justice
SEIU
ACT-UP
Lesbian Avengers
Washington Action Group

FURTHER INSIGHT

Crespo, Al. Protest In The Land Of
Plenty: A View of Democracy from the
Streets of America As We Enter the 21st
Century. USA: Center Lane Press, 2002.

Wikipedia entry on Feb 15, 2003:
Largest anti-war global action

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest

This Is What Democracy Looks Like.
Directed by Jill F riedberg and Rick
Rowley. Big Noise Films, 2000.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265871/

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Sellers
Andrew Boyd

Everyone’s felt the irresistible people-power of a large march
or rally. When a crowd is bred up by great musicians or fiery
speakers it can rock. There is real strength in numbers. Most
of us have also been inspired by a great nonviolent direct ac-
tion. When individuals or small teams decide to creatively
throw themselves upon the gears of the machine, it can deto-
nate powerful mind bombs in our psyches.

But when you bring the two
together, and thousands of
folks from all walks of life col-
laborate in a mass street action,
that’s when magic and move-
ments happen. Movements do
mass actions. And you need a
highly functioning and ener-
gized movement in order to
repeatedly pull off smart mass
actions in an escalating struggle
for change.

In the spring of 2011, a million Egyptians took to the
streets, occupied Tahrir Square, fought off wave after wave of
security forces, and after eighteen eventful and often bloody
days, forced President Hosni Mubarak from office. In 1999,
70,000 took to the streets of Seattle and nonviolently shut
down the WTO Ministerial meeting, the world’s largest busi-
ness meeting. In 2010, 3,000 trade unionists and their allies
formed a “Citizens’ Posse” and encircled a downtown D.C.
hotel full of insurance industry lobbyists for a day in a show of
force during the closing weeks of America’s epic health care
reform fight.

In spite of the differences here in scale, duration, political
importance, targets and tactics, all three of these mass street
actions succeeded in their goals because they all shared a few
key ingredients:

“A mass street
action is simply
too big to direct by
shouting through
a megaphone; you
can’t tango with
a battleship.”

• they disrupted business as usual;

• they had a clear motive and story;

• they used disciplined nonviolence and focused militancy;

• and they offered an easy way for individuals to participate.

TACTIC: Mass Street Action

TACTICS

Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Carnival protest web
Blockade p. 14
Occupation p. 78
Sit-in web

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Hamoq & hamas p. 236

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286
Citizens’ Posse p. 300
Reclaim the Streets p. 350
The salt march p. 354
Occupy Wall Street web
Critical Mass web
Koch Guerrilla Drive-In web

Top: Photo by Rezik Teebi.

Bottom: A good mass street action can lead to euphoric celebrations as people power triumphs-this can be seen on
the face of the young girl above.

A mass street action can’t really be choreographed; it’s too big
to direct by shouting through a megaphone — instead, it needs
to be largely self-organizing. To work, though, it needs a shared
framework, mode of action or rough script to both facilitate
self-organizing and maintain the coherence of the overall
action see PRINCIPLE: Simple rules can lead to grand results.

Tahrir didn’t need a script. It needed a call to congregate
in public spaces.

TACTIC: Mass Street Action

The movement that shut down the WTO was built around
a loose coalition, held together by a horizontally democratic
spokescouncil. It agreed on a broad messaging frame and laid
down some tactical ground rules (e.g. an agreement on non-
violence, specific responsibilities for each cluster of affinity
groups, etc.). It was not choreographed, it was chaotic; decen-
tralized but connected.

The Citizens’ Posse action was tightly scripted. Coalition
partners designed and agreed on the action frame up front.
It needed a tighter script because the action relied more on
theater and story than on an actual shutdown of the target.
Even though it was primarily a communicative action, it felt
like a concrete one because the theater itself was militant,
and participants were given a powerful role to play in it see
PRINCIPLE: Make your actions both concrete and communicative.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: At their best, mass street actions make for
beautiful organized chaos. But provocateurs (theirs or ours)
can easily tip the fragile balance toward a nightmarish battle
between cops and protesters. Unless this is your agreed-
upon goal, you have to have strong agreements, principles,
and preparation to ensure the safety of those who have picked
up your call to action.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Escalate strategically p. 134
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Enable, don't command p. 132
Simple rules can have grand results p. 17 6
Don’t dress like a protester p. 126
When the people are with you, act! web

SHOW, DON’T TELL: Actions speak louder than words. The best
mass street actions put a problem on the map by mobilizing
thousands of people from all walks of life to congregate and
confront a shared injustice. Hopefully you can gather right at
the scene of the crime or an iconic location of symbolic power
and literally show your adversaries (and yourselves) that the
people united will never be defeated.

TACTIC: Mass Street Action

Police resorted to pepper spray and other harsh tactics after 70,000 protesters swarmed Seattle in late 1999, success-
fully shutting down the WTO Ministerial Conference with a combination of human blockades and mass street protests.

TACTIC: Mass Street Action

TACTIC :

@ Media-jacking

COMMON USES

To undermine your opposition’s
narrative by hijacking their
event; to draw attention to
your side of the story; to
capitalize on your target’s
media presence; to reframe
an issue; to be a jackass.

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace
Abbie Hoffman
The Yes Men
United for a Fair Economy
Rainforest Action Network
Operation SalAMI
Ashton Kutcher

FURTHER INSIGHT

Jason Salzman, Making the News:
A Guide For Activists And Non-
profits : Revised And Updated
[USA: Basic Books, 2003]

National Media Conference
for Progressives

http://www.truespinconference.com

Art of the Prank, “ Greenpeace Hijacks
Kleenex PR Stunt in Times Square’’

http://trb.la/wnlcQb

CONTRIBUTED BY

Patrick Reinsborough
Doyle Canning
Joshua Kahn Russell

U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos capture global attention with a Black Power salute on the medal stand at
the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. This famous image subverted the spectacle of the medal ceremony to make a power-
ful statement rejecting racism and oppression.

TACTIC: Media-jacking

Media-jacking is when you subvert your opponent’s spectacle for
your own purposes. Politicians, corporations and lobbyists
have much bigger PR budgets and name-brand draw to
attract press to their staged media events. Through well-
planned creative interventions, however, you can refocus
things and highlight a different side the story.

There are a few different
ways to design a successful me-
dia-jacking. The first is simply
commandeering the media.

One of the most literal (and
bold) examples of this occurred
in 1991 during the first Gulf
War, when the anti-AIDS orga-
nization ACT UP burst into a
CBS TV studio during a live primetime news broadcast and
took over the set, chanting “Fight AIDS, not Arabs.”

Another option is to use your opposition’s platform to tell
your own story. In 2007, Kleenex ran an expensive PR stunt
where they interviewed people on the street for a commercial
they were making, getting participants to cry and say, “I need
a Kleenex.” Greenpeace activists stealthily lined up to be in-
terviewed, crying instead because Kleenex was clear-cutting
old growth forests to make their tissues. They successfully
shut down the shoot for the rest of the day, and a video of the
action went viral.

Sophisticated media-jacking uses your target’s own story
against them, undermining them at the point of assumption
see THEORY: Points of intervention. For example, when activ-
ists from United for a Fair Economy hijacked the Republican
stunt on Tax Day 1998 see CASE: Whose Tea Party?, they turned
the message “taxes = oppression” on its head, to show instead
that tax breaks for the rich are destroying working families
see PRINCIPLE: Reframe.

Similarly, in 2006, activists with the Rainforest Action Net-
work made fake press passes, put on suits and snuck into the
Los Angeles Auto Show. Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General
Motors, was giving a keynote address about how “environ-
mentally friendly” GM’s cars are. The speech was bullshit, but
rather than saying it was bullshit, RAN activists stepped on to
the stage and up to the mic, pretending to be the emcees
see PRINCIPLE: Use the Jedi mind trick. They congratulated
Wagoner, then told the audience that they were pleased

sopnisucaiea
media-jacking uses
your target’s own
story against
them.”

TACTICS

Creative disruption p. 18
Infiltration p. 64
Hoax p. 54

Identity correction p. 60

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Whose Tea Party? p. 392

Public Option Annie p. 346

Battle in Seattle p. 2 86

Dow Chemical aplogizes for Bhopal p. 318

Billionaires for Bush p. 296

Colbert roasts Bush p. 308

TACTIC: Media-jacking

to announce that GM was prepared to commit in writ-
ing to the promises he’d just made, and unfurled an
oversized “pledge” that they asked him to sign. He
had two options: 1) sign it, and give the campaigners
something in writing to hold him to, or 2) refuse, demonstrating
his dishonesty see PRINCIPLE: Put your target in a decision
dilemma. He chose the second option, and the media
went nuts. Over 700 media outlets ran stories about GM’s
greenwashing exposed.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Media is an extremely uneven terrain of
struggle. Accurate and sympathetic media coverage is often
based on having good relationships with journalists, so be careful
your action doesn’t alienate the very media professionals you
need to be covering the story.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Do the media's work for them p. 124
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Show, don't tell p. 174
The real action is your target's reaction web
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Consider your audience p. 11 8
Seek common ground p. 170
Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 166
Play to the audience that isn’t there p. 16 0
Turn the tables p. 190
Name the elephant in the room web

SHOW, DON’T TELL: Media-jacking offers activists the unique
opportunity to not just engage opponents on their playing
held, but to actually call the shots and reframe the discussion.
By putting their targets on the spot in front of the media, they
can reshape how the public perceives the “good guys” and “bad
guys” and flip their opponents’ story on its head.

TACTIC: Media-jacking

— Vaclav Havel

Nonviolent search and seizure

COMMON USES

Does the government or a
polluting corporation have
hidden documents or secret
plans? Liberate them!

PRACTITIONERS

Casino-Free Philadelphia
Operation SalAMI
Canadian Union of Postal Workers

FURTHER INSIGHT

Guide New Tactics in Human Rights:
“Tactical Transferability: The
Nonviolent Raid as Case Study "

http://trb.la/wnJnkL

Canadian Union of Postal Workers,
‘Operation Transparency: Their Secret
Documents, Our Right to Know"

http://trb.la/A8Csk2

Casino-Free Philadelphia,
“Operation Transparency"

http://trb. la/xr3stB

Video: “Operation Transparency
Direct Action at Pennsylvania
Gaming Control Board"

http://trb.la/yilu3m

CONTRIBUTED BY

Daniel Hunter

The tactic of nonviolent search and seizure rests on the idea
that any information that impacts the public but is being
hidden from them should be liberated. It’s a direct action
tactic that involves taking matters
into our own hands by show-
ing up with a “citizens’ search
warrant” and attempting,
nonviolently, to liberate the
documents in question. Even
though the tactic is unlikely
to succeed directly, the ensu-
ing controversy (and possible
arrests) can nonetheless bring
the secret documents to the
public’s attention. In several
high-profile cases, the success-
ful application of the tactic has
created enough outcry that
the target has been forced to
make the documents public.

The tactic originated in
2001, when Philippe Duhamel,
a trainer and organizer based
in Montreal, Canada, thought
back to Gandhi’s strategy of
nonviolent raids on colonial salt
deposits. Duhamel was work-
ing with Operation SalAMI’s
campaign to expose the secretive Free Trade Area of Ameri-
cas (FTAA) trade agreement being negotiated. Even senators
and members of parliament could not see the negotiating texts
— only key CEOs and the leaders of participating nations.
Decrying the anti-democratic nature of the negotiations, Du-
hamel decided to reinvent Gandhi’s open, transparent raids.

Weeks ahead of the Quebec City summit, Operation
SalAMI announced it would attempt to “liberate” the texts
for public scrutiny. On the day of the action, wave after wave
of participants approached the police barricades erected (for
their benefit) around the Department of Foreign Affairs and

“This action places
the opponent
in a quandary:
if they release
the documents ,
your direct action
brings meaningful
information to light
and scores political
points. If they
don’t, it raises the
public’s interest, and
ultimately suspicion,
over what is being
hidden from them.’’

TACTIC: Nonviolent search and seizure

International Trade. Each wave read aloud a citizens’ search

warrant: “Hello, my name is . Access to information is

basic to democracy. Without that information we cannot have
a meaningful public debate. We ask the police to do their job
and help us search for the texts. Please let me through.”

The first wave went over and was promptly arrested. Over
several hours, eighty people — some dressed as Robin Hood
— climbed over the fence and attempted to liberate the docu-
ments. Their action was their message see THEORY: Action logic.

As the public saw the lengths the government and corpo-
rations were going to hide the texts, public outrage mounted
until eventually the Canadian government broke down and
released the texts. Exposed to public scrutiny as the corpo-
rate coup d’etat it was, the FTAA never moved forward.

Nonviolent search and seizure has since been used success-
fully by other groups and campaigns, including the Canadian
Union of Postal Workers and Casino-Free Philadelphia, which
won the release of 95% of the documents they had sought to
liberate with only fourteen arrests, showing the tactic can be
effective on a small scale.

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Mass street action p. 68
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
The commons p. 220

PUT YOUR TARGET IN A DECISION DILEMMA: This action places
the opponent in a quandary: if they release the documents,
your direct action brings meaningful information to light and
scores political points. If they don’t, it raises the public’s inter-
est, and ultimately suspicion, over what is being hidden from
them. Heads you win, tails they lose.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Get arrested in an intelligent way web
Create a theatrical motivation that
keeps the action going web
Be an ethical prankster web

TACTIC: Nonviolent search and seizure

y Occupation

COMMON USES

To hold public space; to
pressure a target; to reclaim
or squat property; to defend
against “development”; to
assert Indigenous sovereignty.

EPIGRAPH

“Lost o job, found an occupation"
- Occupy Wall Street

PRACTITIONERS

Take Back The Land
Landless Workers Movement [MST]
La Via Campesina
Occupy Wall Street
Los Indignados
April 6 Youth Movement

FURTHER INSIGHT

Twin Cities Indymedia, “Ten Year
Anniversary of Minnehaha Free State"

http://trb.la/xirh70

Occupy USA Today, “7 Occupations
that changed U.S. History"

http://trb.la/ArEnhs

Take Back The Land

www.takebacktheland.org

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell
Arun Gupta

The first recorded labor strike was a form of occupation: over
3,000 years ago, ancient Egyptian tomb builders from the des-
ert village of Deir el-Medina repeatedly occupied temples fol-
lowing the failure of Pharaoh Ramses III to provide adequate
provisions. We see other examples of public occupations that
have propelled history forward ever since.

Flint Michigan Strike from smartMeme Strategy & Training Project.

In seventeenth-century England, for instance, the Dig-
gers formed a utopian agrarian community on common land.
Workers, soldiers and citizens established the Paris Commune
in 1871. In the United States, in the Great Upheaval of 1877,
striking railway workers and their supporters occupied train
yards across the land. A wave of plant occupations in the mid-
1980s led to the justly famous Flint sit-down strikes of 1936,
which won union recognition for hundreds of thousands of
auto workers.

Occupations are a popular tactic employed by social move-
ments to hold and defend space. Other direct action tactics
may also be deployed to support the occupation see TACTICS:
Sit in, Blockade, Banner drop; or in some circumstances full-

TACTIC: Occupation

blown occupations have been known to grow out of a smaller
tactic, such as a sit-in.

While the term can refer to an oppressor who has invaded
or annexed land from a population (“occupied North America/
Turtle Island” or “occupied Palestine”), the tactic of occupation
is often used by those same groups to assert their right to that
land: for example, the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969 by
Indians of All Tribes, or when the Mendota Mdewakanton Da-
kota community, American Indian Movement, and Earth First!
held a sixteen-month occupation to defend Minnehaha State
Park from highway construction slated to desecrate sacred land.

The action logic see PRINCIPLE of many of these occupa-
tions is that people are reclaiming space that they are
entitled to, thereby highlighting a greater theft. This same
action logic can be applied to students taking over a build-
ing that should be serving them (for instance, in the late
1960s when African-American students occupied university
buildings across the U.S., leading to the creation of many
African American/Ethnic Studies departments), or environ-
mentalists defending land that should be held in common, or
workers occupying the factory in which they labor.

The “indignados" encampments inspired occupy movements worldwide. Puerto del Sol, Madrid. May 18, 2011.
(Reuters/ Paul Hanna)

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Eviction blockade p. 44
Blockade p. 14
Sit-in web
Encampment web

PRINCIPLES

Choose tactics that support

your strategy p. 112

Put your target in a decision

dilemma p. 1 66

Escalate strategically p. 134

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 19 6

Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160

Kill them with kindness p. 140

Be both concrete and communicative web

Take risks, but take care p. 182

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

When the people are with you, act! web

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396

While occupations can range in style and form, they gen-
erally have two key components: 1) a focus on the logistics of
maintaining an encampment, semi-permanent rally, or sit-in,
which requires meeting needs around food, shelter, defense

TACTIC: Occupation

from police raids, etc., and which can often be a profoundly
politicizing experience in its own right, and 2) a public pres-
sure campaign that seeks to put the target in a decision
dilemma see PRINCIPLE.

The location chosen for an occupation site often deter-
mines its success. A number of considerations may factor into
the decision, such as symbolic significance, ability to concretely
disrupt a target see PRINCIPLE: Make your actions both concrete
and communicative, a logistical ability to maintain the occu-

Occupation of Wall Street 2011.

pation, as well as public visibility and technicalities of legal
ownership. Historically, occupations have lent themselves to
spontaneity, but the enduring ones tend to be well-planned.

Groups like the Landless Workers Movement (MST)
and La Via Campesina support communities of peasants in
occupying fallow private land and reclaiming it for common
use or basic subsistence. In the United States, groups like
Take Back the Land apply this same principle to foreclosures,
defending housing as a human right see TACTIC: Eviction blockade.
In the environmental movement, tree-sits are a common
example of occupations being used to defend forests from
logging. Squatters movements across Europe have “taken
back” abandoned buildings and repurposed them as homes
and social centers with the intention of flying under the radar
of authorities until they can lay legal claim to the space.

Occupations inherendy threaten the legitimacy of a target by
demonstrating the power-holder’s inability to enforce the status
quo. They also serve to expose the arbitrary, and often unjust,
nature of private property regimes see THEORY: The commons.

TACTIC: Occupation

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Occupations are difficult to sustain in-
definitely. Have a plan — including an exit plan.

POINTS OF INTERVENTION: Different points of intervention will
yield different sorts of occupations. An occupation of a fac-
tory is an intervention at the point of production that seeks
to physically interrupt (or restart ') economic activity. Other
occupations, say of the Wisconsin State Capitol (see CASE),
occur at the point of decision. Occupy Wall Street (see
CASE) began as an intervention at the point of assumption:
occupying Zuccotti Park didn’t physically inconvenience
anyone on Wall Street — at first. Until the tents went up, it
was just a park near some banks. Then it became a rallying
point, a place from which to undermine the assumptions
of unaccountable economic power and begin organizing
against specific targets (banks, the stock exchange, court-
houses, etc.) at other points of intervention.

KEY THEORY

at work

OTHER RELATED THEORIES:

Action logic p. 208

Points of intervention p. 250

The commons p. 220

Pillars of support p. 248

Hamoq & hamas p. 236

Temporary Autonomous Zone ( TAZ ] p. 270

Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260

1 During the 1999-2002 economic crisis, Argentinian workers occupied their shuttered workplaces in
an effort to recover unpaid wages, keep their jobs, and ultimately run the factories for themselves.
See The Take, directed by Avi Lewis (2004).

TACTIC: Occupation

Prefigurative Intervention

COMMON USES

To give a glimpse of the Utopia
we’re working for; to show
how the world could be; to
make such a world feel not
just possible, but irresistible.

EPIGRAPH

“You never change things by
fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build
a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete.”

-Buckminster Fuller

PRACTITIONERS

Steve Lambert
The Yes Men
The Provos
The (new) Diggers

FURTHER INSIGHT

Provo Images, “White Plans"

http://provo-images.info/WhitePlans.html

Burning Man, “Ten Principles"

http://trb. la/weruXo

L. M. Bogad, “Radical Simulacrum,
Regulation By Prank: The Oil Enforcement
Agency," in Contemporary theater
Review, Vol. 17(2), 2007, p261.

http://trb. la/wgzZKU

Artists Against Cuts, “A User’s Guide
to Demanding the Impossible"

http://trb.la/yExE89

PARK(ing) Day

http://parkingday.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

Many of us spend so much time trying to stop bad things
from happening that we rarely take the time to sketch out
how things could be better, let alone actually go out and cre-
ate a little slice of the future we want to live in. Prefigurative
interventions seek to address that imbalance.

The lunch counter sit-ins
of the U.S. civil rights move-
ment are frequently referenced
as defiant, courageous and
ultimately successful acts of re-
sistance against America’s Jim
Crow-era apartheid. They were
certainly that, but they were
also profoundly prefigurative.

The students’ actions — mixed-race groups of people violating
the law by sitting at lunch counters and demanding to be served
— foreshadowed victory and prefigured the world they wanted
to live in: they were enacting the integration they wanted.

Pranks, art interventions, tactical media, alternative fes-
tivals and temporary communities, even electoral guerrilla
theater, can also be effective ways to prefigure the world we
want to live in.

Prefigurative interventions are direct actions sited at
the point of assumption — where beliefs are made and unmade,
and the limits of the possible can be stretched see THEORY:
Points of intervention. The goal of a prefigurative intervention is
twofold: to offer a compelling glimpse of a possible, and better,
future, and also — slyly or baldly — to point up the poverty of
imagination of the world we actually do live in.

Like the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt and the
encampments in public squares across Spain by the Indignados
movement, the Occupy encampments across the world are
crucibles of prefigurative intervention, providing a space for
people to create in microcosm the communitarian and dem-
ocratic world they want to bring into being. Likewise, the
Burning Man art festival works as a temporary autonomous
zone where people can live out values, test out ideas and ex-
periment with the future in real time see THEORY: Temporary
Autonomous Zones.

“We can’t create a
world we haven’t
yet imagined.
Better if we’ve
already tasted it”

TACTIC: Prefigurative Intervention

PARK(ing) Day. An annual worldwide event where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into
temporary public parks.

Monthly Critical Mass bike rides prefigure future cities in
which bicycles actually hold their own as traffic. Or PARK(ing)
Day, in which people in cities across the country put a day’s
worth of coins into a parking meter and transform their
parking space into a mini-park or jazz lounge or tiny public
swimming pool, prefigure a greening of urban space and a
reclaimed commons.

The Oil Enforcement Agency was a 2006 theatrical action
campaign in which environmental activists — complete with
SWAT-team-like caps and badges, posed as agents of a govern-
ment agency — one that didn’t exist, but should have. Agents
ticketed SUVs, impounded fuel-inefficient vehicles at auto
shows and generally modelled a future in which government
took climate change seriously.

If hope truly is a muscle that we build by exercising, then
interventions that prefigure the world we want to live in —
whether by prophetic acts of civil disobedience, the formation
of alternative communities or the staging of prankish provoca-
tions — are one of the best ways to work that muscle.

TACTICS

Electoral guerrilla theater p. 40
Occupation p. 78
Direct action p. 32
Guerrilla theater web
Art intervention web
Encampment web

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
The commons p. 220

CASE STUDIES

The salt march p. 354
Occupy Wall Street web
Daycare center sit-in p. 316
Small Gifts p. 360

New York Times “Special Edition” web

Critical Mass web

Burning Man web

The Oil Enforcement Agency web

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: When playing with utopian visions, it’s
easy to get all squishy-Kumbaya or run off into esoteric fantasy-
land. The idea is not to paint a pretty picture full of rainbows
and unicorns, but to put forward a fragment of something

TACTIC: Prefigurative Intervention

Banksy says: every day is parking ) day.

visionary, desirable, and just beyond the realm of the possible
— and in such a way that your action calls out the vested in-
terests making it impossible. In sum, it has got to make sense.
Don’t go proposing replacing a cash-and-credit economy with
a hug-and-kiss economy and think that’ll demonstrate how
the CEOs are keeping us all from being happy.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Kill them with kindness p. 140
Show, don’t tell p. 174
Reframe p. 168
Team up with experts p. 184
Be the change you want to see web
Hope is a muscle web
All power to the imagination web
The price of a successful attack is
a constructive alternative web
Have an inside/outside strategy web

SHOW, DON’T TELL: You can go on about Utopia, about the bet-
ter world you dream of, about how things could be different, til
you’re blue in the face, and it might not sink in. You might not
even believe it. But creating a lived experience of the change
you seek — whether it’s a prophetic headline that for fifteen
seconds you believe to be true see CASE: New York Times “Special
Edition”, or an unlocked white bicycle leaning against a build-
ing that is free for anyone to use — is the best way to break
through cynicism, stimulate our political imaginations and af-
firm that, “Yes, another world is possible.” After all, we can’t
create a world we haven’t yet imagined. Better if we’ve already
tasted it.

TACTIC: Prefigurative Intervention

These bicycle enthusiasts show us what our world could look like if more people challenged the dominant reality of car
culture. Internationally dispersed, uncoordinated actions such as this operate under the name Critical Mass.

TACTIC: Prefigurative Intervention

w Public filibuster

COMMON USES

Interrupting or shutting down
a hearing or government vote.

PRACTITIONERS

Casino-Free Philadelphia
Delaware Riverkeeper Network

FURTHER INSIGHT

Casino-Free Philadelphia, “Flow
to Do a Public Filibuster"

http://trb.la/y1COgt

CONTRIBUTED BY

Daniel blunter

Many people know about the U.S. Senate’s procedural filibus-
ters, in which a dissenting senator holds the floor to keep a
vote from happening. The people’s version, the public filibuster,
is no different. When activists face hostile government agen-
cies or hearings that exclude the public, this relatively low-risk
tactic injects the public’s voice into an otherwise closed-off
process. Confrontational but constructive, it has been adapt-
ed by a range of citizen groups.

In 2007, for example, a dozen members of Casino-Free
Philadelphia decided to use the public filibuster at a Pennsyl-
vania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) meeting. For two years,
the PGCB had refused to let members of the public testify at
so-called public hearings, but this time the public was going
to have its say. One at a time, members stood up and began
testifying. Each one was told to be quiet by the chairwoman.
A recess was quickly called, and the members who had spo-
ken were escorted out of the building by police and told they
would not be allowed to return.

When the board reconvened, the chairwoman warned the
remaining members of the group not to interrupt. Naturally,
one after another of the mem-
bers immediately stood up and
continued the filibuster. They
spoke over the banging gavel
of the distressed chairwoman
and over the “official” testifiers
as they coolly tried to continue.

Another recess was called, and
then another, as the public fili-
buster continued. Finally, the
PGCB shut down the entire
meeting. The result: rather
than risk another such engagement, the PGCB changed its
policy to allow the public to speak at hearings.

To an unsympathetic eye, disrupting a meeting can come
across as mob rule, especially when poorly done see TACTIC:
Creative disruption. The power of the public filibuster depends
on carrying out the action in a dignified manner, as well as
framing the tactic properly. Calling the action a “public fili-

“The power of the
public filibuster
depends on carrying
out the action in a
dignified manner,
as well as framing
the tactic properly.”

TACTIC: Public filibuster

buster” helps lend the kind of legitimacy recognized by re-
porters and the broader public.

When planning a public filibuster, be sure to stay positive
and respectful. Your tone matters a great deal, and your bear-
ing and presentation should be above reproach. Be honest,
expressive, polite and on-message. Focus on the issue at hand,
not the person trying to run the meeting. Also, show some
compassion for the chairperson, who is used to being in con-
trol. This action threatens their power and puts them in an
awkward and uncomfortable position. Be gentle with them.

TACTICS

Infiltration p. 64
Creative disruption p. 18
Eviction blockade p. 44
Sit-in web
Direct action p. 32

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: Our opponents use bureaucratic
delays and restrictions on public hearings to keep their deal-
ings in the shadows. Such delays and restrictions are boring
procedural issues that happen quietly and can easily go unno-
ticed. The public filibuster puts a spotlight on these practices
by creating conflict and drama where there was none before,
hushing into the open the undemocratic nature of the current
process. Then everyone can see the problem for themselves
and make up their own mind.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

If protest is made illegal, make

daily life a protest p. 138

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

Don’t dress like a protester p. 126

Turn the tables p. 190

Show, don't tell p. 174

Kill them with kindness p. 140

THEORIES

Acton logic p. 208
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Points of intervention p. 250
The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Bidder 70 p. 290

TACTIC: Public filibuster

TACTIC:

W Strategic nonviolence

COMMON USES

To create a framework for
broad-based direct action
conducive to building large,
inclusive, diverse and
effective movements.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Alliance of Community Trainers,
“An Open Letter to the Occupy
Movement: Why We Need Agreements"

http://trainersalliance.org/?p=221

CONTRIBUTED BY

Starhawk & the Association
of Community Trainers

For over a decade, questions of violence, property destruc-
tion and confrontational tactics generally have tended to
be debated under the frame diversity of tactics, but the time
has come to seek a new frame. Diversity of tactics becomes
an easy way to avoid wrestling with questions of strategy and
accountability. It lets us off the hook from doing the hard
work of debating positions and coming to agreements about
how we want to act together. It becomes a code for “anything
goes,” and makes it impossible for our movements to hold
anyone accountable for their actions.

A framework that might better serve our purposes
is one of strategic nonviolent direct action. Within a stra-
tegic nonviolence framework,
groups make clear agree-
ments about which tactics to
use for a given action. This
frame is strategic — it makes
no moral judgments about
whether or not violence is ever
appropriate, it does not demand we commit ourselves to a
lifetime of Gandhian pacifism, but it says, “This is how we
agree to act together at this time.” It is active, not passive. It
seeks to create a dilemma for the opposition see PRINCIPLE:
Put your target in a decision dilemma, and to dramatize the
difference between our values and theirs.

Strategic nonviolent direct action has powerful advantages:

“Diversity of
tactics becomes
code for
‘anything goes

We make agreements about what types of action we will take, and
hold one another accountable for keeping them. Making agree-
ments is empowering. If I know what to expect in an action,
I can make a choice about whether or not to participate. We
don’t place unwilling people in the position of being held
responsible for acts they did not commit and do not support.

In the process of coming to agreements, we listen to each other’s
differing viewpoints. We don’t avoid disagreements within
our group, but learn to debate freely, passionately and
respectfully.

TACTIC: Strategic nonviolence

We organize openly, without fear, because we stand behind our
actions. We may break laws in service to the higher laws
of conscience. We don’t seek punishment, nor admit the
right of the system to punish us, but we face the potential
consequences for our actions with courage and pride.

Because we organize openly, we can invite new people into
our movements and they can continue to grow. As soon as we
institute a security culture in the midst of a mass movement,
the movement begins to close in upon itself and to shrink.

Though a framework of nonviolent direct action does not make
us “safe,” it does let us make clear decisions about what kinds
of actions we put ourselves at risk for. That said, we can’t
control what the police do and they need no direct provo-
cation to attack us see PRINCIPLE: Take risks but take care.

A framework of strategic nonviolent direct action makes it easy
to reject provocation. We know what we’ve agreed to — and
anyone urging other courses of action can be reminded of
those agreements or rejected.

There’s plenty of room in this struggle for a diversity of move-
ments and a diversity of organizing and actions. Some may
choose strict Gandhian nonviolence, others may choose em-
phatic resistance. But for movements that embrace it, strategic

TACTICS

Mass street action p. 68
Occupation p. 78
Direct action p. 32
Prefigurative intervention p .82
Carnival protest web

THEORIES

Hamo q & hamas p. 236
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260
Points of intervention p. 250
Pillars of support p. 248
Action logic p. 208
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Cycles of social movements web

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web

nonviolent direct action is a framework that will allow broad-
based movements to grow in diversity and power.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

ESCALATE STRATEGICALLY: Activists tend to become increasingly
radicalized through greater exposure to repression and in-
justice. Young activists, especially, will increasingly seek more
“hardcore” ways to challenge the structures they oppose. These
tendencies are valuable and should be honored and supported,
but not all “hardcore” actions are equally effective. By charting
a course of strategic escalation, we make space for the more
radical among us to grow, without leaving behind the more
cautious in our midst.

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 1 66
The real action is your target's reaction web
One no, many yesses web

TACTIC: Strategic nonviolence

COMMON USES

To link disparate locations that
seek to have impact on a
common issue; to model
alternative community; to
demonstrate commitment to a
cause through endurance; to
physically embody a pathway
to an alternative.

EPIGRAPH

“The path is made by walking.”

-Antonio Machado

PRACTITIONERS

Zapatistas
Greenpeace
Sojourner Truth
Peace Pilgrim

Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, New York

FURTHER INSIGHT

On-to-Ottawa Trek

http://www.ontoottawa.ca/trek/trek.html

New York Times, “Soviet-American
Group Plans Voyage for Peace"

http://trb.la/Ad9ANo

Trail of Dreams

h ttp://tra H2010.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

We learn to walk at a very early age, and almost simultaneously,
we learn the power of being able to move ourselves toward places
we want to go (that pile of toys) or away from places we want to
leave (that plate of smashed peas) . Each step of our path embodies
the message.

People’s resistance stories are full of walks, treks, sea voyages
and even flights. Over the millennia of human existence,
entire communities have packed up and voted with their feet,
moving away from untenable situations to more fertile lands.
In the last century, extended marches have been used broadly
and strategically as a platform for outreach and mobilization,
and as a visible expression of issues.

India’s Salt March of 1932 is likely the best-known example
of a mass, many-day trek see CASE: The salt march. Gandhi con-
ceived of this march as a living lesson for India, creating a
community, literally one step at a time, that both supported
and embodied an independent India.

Many other treks have followed suit, usually with a com-
mitment to demonstrate an ideal or alternative way of living.
The 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament
flourished during its cross-continental trek, arriving in
Washington, D.C., with 1,500 marchers and thousands more
supporters. In the course of the 3,700 logged miles, the march-
ers not only educated and agitated for action on nuclear
disarmament, but also built a participatory mobile city.

Not all treks model alternative social or living structures;
some focus on specific strategic functions of the tactic itself.
In 2010, four immigrant students embarked on a 1,500-mile
march to Washington, D.C., to support immediate passage of
the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education of Alien Mi-
nors) Act and a moratorium on deportations of eligible students.
The Trail of Dreams see CASE: The Trail of Dreams embodied the
impossible hurdles placed on the path to success of immigrants
in the USA.

Many forms of transportation, from bicycles to trains and
even sailboats, have been used in treks. In the 1935 On-to-
Ottawa trek, hundreds of unemployed Canadian workers
boarded boxcars in Vancouver to take their grievances to the
national capital. Their basic demands proved so threatening

TACTIC: Trek

to the government that they were physically stopped from
reaching Ottawa, but the unrest that fueled their trek soon
brought down the conservative government. In 1989, a citi-
zen diplomatic venture, the Soviet American Sail, navigated
a 156' schooner from NYC to Leningrad to bring home the
counter-Cold War and environmental message, “We’re all
in the same boat.” The trek tactic can prove a potent tool in
focusing attention on an issue.

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82

Artistic vigil p. 10

Creative petition delivery p. 22

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
Pillars of support p. 248
Ethical spectacle p. 230

CASE STUDIES

The salt march p. 354
Trail of Dreams p. 384

Schooner Te Vega's crew prepares for departure to Leningrad on the Soviet American Sail. Success comes from pulling together.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: All of these mobile protests require im-
mense amounts of logistical support before, during, and after
the action itself. Sometimes this burden can prove too heavy and
the logistics can overwhelm the organizers, leaving the strategy
unrealized. When things go badly, the physical requirements of
the trek or ride can exhaust members and burn out the broader
support network. Make sure to allow adequate preparation time
and gather appropriate resources to ensure success.

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: The routes of treks are often stra-
tegically chosen to make the invisible visible, bringing issues
that are currently under the radar into the public dialogue.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Pace yourself p. 158

Use the power of ritual p. 198

TACTIC: Trek

TACTIC:

Write your own TACTIC

COMMON USES

Hoio does it work ?

EPIGRAPH

PRACTITIONERS

FURTHER INSIGHT

CONTRIBUTED BY

TACTIC: Write your own TACTIC

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

POTENTIAL PITFALLS:

TACTICS

THEORIES

CASES

The modular format of Beautiful Trouble allows the collection
to expand endlessly to reflect new tactical breakthroughs,
underrepresented areas of struggle and overlooked pearls
of wisdom.

Become part of Beautiful Trouble. Use this template to
write up your own creative-activism insights. Submit your own
module for publication on the Beautiful Trouble website here:
http://beautifultrouble.org.

TACTIC: Write your own TACTIC

DESIGN GUIDELINES

Hard-won insights that can inform
creative action design.

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention ,
through the restless , impatient , continuing , , hopeful inquiry human
beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other”

— Paulo Freire

After decades of making foolish mistakes, veteran creative
activists tend to acquire a set of mental short-cuts.
Whether they’re conscious of them or not, they bring
these operating principles to bear on each new action
or campaign they cook up. After a string of late-
night truth serum injections and fugue-state urban
vagabonding, we managed to pry a bunch of them
loose. Enjoy.

nger works best when you have
the moral high ground

IN SUM

Anger is potent. Use it
wisely. If you have the
moral higher ground, it is
compelling and people
will join you. If you don’t, you’ll
look like a cranky wing-nut.

EPIGRAPH

“The truth will set you free,
but first it will piss you off.”

-Gloria Steinem

PRACTITIONERS

Malcolm X
SNCC

Occupy Wall Street

FURTHER INSIGHT

Elephant Journal. “Buddhism and
the Occupy Movement: Taking Care
of Our Anger," by Michael Stone

http://trb.la/xuhdo8

Video: “You're Doing It Right: UC Davis
Students Respond with Silent, Powerful
Protest of Pepper Spraying"

http://trb.la/yh0k5z

Video: “Occupy Wall Street: Chris Hedges
Shuts Down CBC's Kevin O’Leary"

http://trb.la/y61Rrm

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

Anger is a double-edged sword. Or perhaps it’s more like
a water hose: it’s full of force, it’s hard to control, and it’s
important where you aim it.

There is a crucial distinc-
tion to be made between moral
indignation and self-righteous-
ness. Moral indignation chan-
nels anger into resolve, courage
and powerful assertions of
dignity. Think: the civil rights
movement. Self-righteousness, on
the other hand, is predictable
and easily dismissed. Think:
masked 16 -year-olds holding
a banner that says “SMASH
CAPITALISM AND EAT THE
RICH.”

Have you seen the scene of
the “Malcolm X” movie where
an army of outraged people
gather and stand in perfect
formation, with perfect pos-
ture, outside a prison to
demand the release of their
friend? It was so bad-ass! They were all wearing suits, they
stood as one, and their discipline clearly communicated: we’re
mad as hell, we’re right, you’re wrong, and you’re going to give us
what we want.

Integrity gives deep meaning and moral force to anger.
We should never come off as mad-for-the-sake-of-being-mad,
but rather as reluctantly, genuinely angry in the face of out-
rageous circumstances. Rather than reacting, we respond.
Rather than lashing out, we stand our ground.

Of course, suppressing legitimate anger can be as
debilitating as hair-trigger reactions. Parts of the Left have
been held back because we are afraid to express or channel
popular outrage. Unable to tap into large-scale disaffection,

“Integrity gives
deep meaning
and moral force to
anger. We should
never come off
as mad-for-the-
sake-of-being-
mad, but rather
as reluctantly,
genuinely angry
in the face of
outrageous
circumstances ”

PRINCIPLE: Anger works best when you have the moral high ground

5 %

TACTICS

Creative disruption p. 18
Infiltration p. 64
Public filibuster p. 86
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Blockade p. 14

PRINCIPLES

Reframe p. 168

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

Escalate strategically p. 134

Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196

Play to the audience that isn’t there p. 160

Pace yourself p. 158

Take leadership from the most

impacted p. 180

Take risks, but take care p. 182

Seek common ground p. 170

THEORIES

Homo q & hamas p. 236
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260
The tactic s of everyday life p. 268
Anti-oppression p. 212
Points of intervention p. 250

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web

Malcolm X's anger was earned by a life of oppression, and he wielded it with discipline and dignity.

we remain marginal. By contrast, many youth movements self-
marginalize precisely because their anger doesn’t resonate.
Find the sweet spot between the two.

PRINCIPLE: Anger works best when you have the moral high ground

I WLE :

W Anyone can act

IN SUM

Don’t worry about being a
lousy actor - you’re
a great one.

EPIGRAPH

“Acting is the least mysterious
of all crafts. Whenever we
want something from somebody
or when we want to hide
something or pretend, we’re acting.
Most people do it all day long.”

-Marlon Brando

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men
Sascha Baron Cohen
Improv Everywhere

FURTHER INSIGHT

Improv can be an excellent tool for
overcoming your instincts to shy away
or duck out. Find a local improv class
in your community if one's available,
or check out these seminal texts:

Halpern, Charna, Del Close, and
Kim Johnson. Truth in Comedy: The
Manual of Improvisation. Colorado
Springs, CO: Meriwether, 1994.

Madison, Patricia Ryan. Improv
Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show
Up. New York: Bell Tower, 2005.

Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and
Non-Actors. New York: Routledge, 2002.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum

If you want to pose as someone you’re not — for example,
while infiltrating a conference — you don’t need to worry
about being a lousy actor.

The Yes Men scrutinizing their fake business cards.

Andy from the Yes Men, for example, is a terrible actor. In
college he got kicked out of a play. In high school he did really
well in an audition, once, and got a part — but then was atro-
cious in the actual performance, as he couldn’t stay interested
in the role. Yes Man Mike, for his part, once played the role
of a dinosaur in an elementary school play. He was good at
it, but only because you couldn’t actually see his expression,
which was most likely not the least bit credible.

OK, you’ll say, but Andy looks very convincing when he ap-
pears on the BBC, posing as a spokesperson for Dow Chemi-
cal. Actually, look closely: he’s terrified. The whole time see
PRINCIPLE: Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel. But after a week
of solid rehearsals, he managed to pretty much memorize
everything he had to say and spit it out. His terrified look
became the look of a nervous PR flak, which is exactly what
he’d turned himself into. Professional PR people are probably
terrified too, but they’re very, very rehearsed.

Rehearsing is one of the two keys to successful “acting,”

PRINCIPLE: Anyone can act

“You’ll quickly
find that when
everyone in the
room believes that
you’re a particular
person , a magical
thing happens:
you start to
believe it as well.’’

which in this context is basically
synonymous with “keeping your
shit together.” (Incidentally,
here’s how you can become an
excellent PR flak yourself: just
memorize the five answers you
want to give, and recite them in
response to whatever question
you’re asked, with appropriate
hemming and hawing, which,
in the biz is called “bridging”
see PRINCIPLE: Stay on message.

That’s all there is to it! And it
works whether you’re pretend-
ing to be Dow Chemical on TV,

posing at a conference as the CIA or speaking as yourself to a
reporter about your latest action.)

The second key to keeping your shit together (AKA acting)
is to realize that once you’re up there, pretty much anything
you do is going to be fine. After all, you’re the most important
person in the room!

You’ll quickly find that when everyone in the room believes
that you’re a particular person, a magical thing happens: you
start to believe it as well. That’s what makes “identity cor-
rection” see PRINCIPLE so much easier than regular acting.
When you’re a regular actor, everyone in the room knows
you’re not actually Hamlet, or Sweeney Todd’s wife, or an
elementary-school dinosaur — and they have to work plenty
hard to “suspend disbelief.” In hoax-like acting, the audience
already believes you are who you’re billed as. It’s suspension of
disbelief in reverse: under the influence of your audience, you
end up believing it as well, and acting just right.

A quick way to test the principle: just put on a suit or
business dress, and notice how you act differently. See?

TACTICS

Identity correction p. 60
Hoax p. 54
Infiltration p. 64
Invisible theater p. 66

PRINCIPLES

Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Use other people’s prejudic-
es against them p. 192
Stay on message p. 178
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160

CASE STUDIES

Bidder 70 p. 290

Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal p. 318
Public Option Annie p. 346
Insurgent Rebel Clown Army web
Billionaires for Bush p. 296

PRINCIPLE: Anyone can act

PRINCIPLE :

W Balance art and message

IN SUM

Effective creative interventions
require a judicious balance of
art and message. It’s not just
what you say, it’s how you say
it. If the role of the artist is to
“deepen the mystery,” what is
the role of the political artist?

EPIGRAPH

“Art is not a mirror held up
to reality, but a hammer
with which to shape it.”

-Bertolt Brecht

PRACTITIONERS

Bread and Puppet Theater
Art and Revolution Collective
ACT-UP
Gran Fury
I Dream Your Dream
Suzanne Lacy
Reverend Billy & the Church
of Earthalujah
El Teatro Campesino
Coco Fusco
Living Theater

CONTRIBUTED BY

Kevin Buckland
Andrew Boyd
Nadine Bloch

100

“Political art.” Easily said, harder to do. Art seeks to explore
the deep questions. Politics demands a clear direction and
message. That’s a tough tension to manage. Sometimes quick
gimmicks are called for; sometimes it pays to dig deeper — in
our craft and in ourselves — to mobilize the unique powers
of art.

“If I could tell you what it meant,” Martha Graham once
said, “there would be no point in dancing it.” Unlike politics,
which tends toward plain prose in endless repetition, art goes
beyond explicit meanings to connect with that more elusive,
soulful dimension of being human — a realm which must
be engaged if we are to truly change the world see THEORY:
Ethical Spectacle.

Song has its own special powers. Singing together builds
emotional ties and harmonies — literally and figuratively.
Song makes us feel powerful and united in a way nothing
else can. During the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989, the
Estonian liberation movement used the country’s traditional
songs in resistance work. At one juncture, a full quarter of the
country’s population sang together in the streets, facing down
Soviet tanks.

Consider the power of Picasso’s Guernica. A striking and
visceral canvas painted in protest of the first aerial bombing
of civilians, its aura as a global symbol of the senseless devasta-
tion of war was still strong enough seventy years later that the
Bush Administration felt compelled to throw a cloth over a
tapestry copy of it when Colin Powell spoke at the UN pushing
for war with Iraq. Images from Guernica continue to resur-
face in anti-war marches the world over.

Advertising is the dominant art form of capitalism, as well
as a science of messaging. In the late 1980’s Gran Fury, an
AIDS activist art collective see PRACTITIONERS, used the
artistic and messaging power of graphics to bring the AIDS
epidemic front and center and move a critical social conversa-
tion in a direction it had never gone before. Their “Kissing
Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do” bus ads featuring
same- and mixed-sex couples kissing were not only explicit in
their visual content, but beautiful, hip, emotive and evocative.

Art invites us to think rather than telling us what to think.

PRINCIPLE: Balance art and message

This is one of its great powers, and if you make your art acces-
sible and beautiful enough, people will want to follow where
the thought goes. And because they’re deciding where to go
with it, they’ll more easily connect it to their own experience.

The right balance of art and message can move both
hearts and minds. Striking this balance, however, can be dif-
ficult. Think about your audience and your goals. What do
you want your art to achieve? Do you want to evoke sympathy?
Provoke deep soul-searching on a given issue? Get people to
call their Senator? Art can help you do all of these things, but
only when art and message are in balance. You know you’ve
struck gold when you’re able to say something so clearly that it
hardly needs to be said at all, but is instead embodied in the
way you say it.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Creative communication can get lots of
attention — so make sure to connect that attention to your
desired action. Give people the tools to act on your issue, even
if it’s just a URL or a phone number.

FURTHER INSIGHT

M arc O’Brien and Craig Little, Reimaging
America: The Arts of Social Change.
Philadelphia: New Society, 1990.

Queer Arts, “AIDS: Making
Art & Raising Hell"

http://trb.la/w28Uab

Douglas Crimp with Adam Rolston.

AIDS DEMOGRAPHICS.

Seattle: Bay Press, 1990.

Documentary: The Singing Revolution

http://www.singingrevolution.com

Video: Amandla! A revolution in
Four Part Harmony

http://trb.la/ydpzt

Video: Amnesty International,

“Making the invisible visible "

http://trb.la/x3XU4n

TACTICS

Artistic vigil p. 10
Human banner p. 56
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Flash mob p. 46
Image theater p. 62

PRINCIPLES

Stay on message p. 178

Make your actions both concrete

and communicative p. 154

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Show, don't tell p. 174

Use the power of ritual p. 198

Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128

Don't dress like a protester p. 126

Consider your audience p. 118

THEORIES

Floating signifier p. 234
Alienation effect p. 210
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

CASE STUDIES

99% bat signal p. 278
Virtual Streetcorners p. 388
Small gifts p. 360

PRINCIPLE: Balance art and message

PRINCIPLE :

eware the tyranny of
structurelessness

IN SUM

Sometimes the least
structured group can be the
most tyrannical. Counter by
promoting accountability
within the group.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Jo Freeman, “The Tyranny
of Strucurelessness"

http://trb.la/ywAM7u

How to organize and facilitate
meetings effectively

http:lltrb. la/y8EE5S

CONTRIBUTED BY

Josh Bolotsky

Have you ever sat through an interminable meeting where
everyone is theoretically on equal grounding, and yet only
one or two people are doing eighty percent of the talking?
Where there’s no facilitator, for fear of introducing hierar-
chy, and so the discussion goes in endless circles, never quite
sure when it’s finished? Where new members lose patience
because their suggestions are ignored and their ideas left to
float in the ether?

Welcome to the tyranny of structurelessness.

Jo Freeman’s seminal 1970 essay “The Tyranny of Struc-
turelessness” put a name to the persistent problem that
plagues decision makers in non-hierarchical groupings, orga-
nizations or collectives. 1 Freeman argued that by claiming to
eschew hierarchy, or even leadership, activists are really uni-
laterally disarming themselves
when it comes to identifying
and correcting impediments to
effective collective action. As
she points out, “there is no such
thing as a structureless group.”

This means that to strive
for a structureless group is
as useful, and as deceptive,
as to aim at an “objective”
news story, “value-free” social
science, or a “free” economy. A “laissez-faire” group is
about as realistic as a “laissez faire” society; the idea
becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to
establish unquestioned hegemony over others... Thus
structurelessness becomes a way of masking power.

It would be bad enough if structurelessness merely led to
bruised feelings and longer meetings, but there is a further
problem: it simply doesn’t work for long. If you’re engaging in
any kind of long-term campaign, a lack of accountability and
organized incorporation of feedback will often prove fatal.

“Accountability
is what gives
democracy its bite,
distinguishing it
from a rote exercise
in communicating
preferences ”

PRINCIPLE: Beware the tyranny of structurelessness

So what’s the way out of a structureless organization that
is not working properly? The best cure is prevention: establish
clear processes from the start. But if you’re stuck in such an
arrangement, and wish to change the culture to something
more democratic and participatory, the key concept to intro-
duce and press for isn’t hierarchy per se, but accountability.

Accountability is what gives democracy its bite, distinguish-
ing it from a rote exercise in communicating preferences. It
involves the establishment of real consequences when the
expressed will of the people is not implemented as promised.
(By contrast, structurelessness provides plenty of ways to note
collective preferences, but precious few equitable or effective
ways to ensure they’re acted upon.) Hierarchy is a particular
vision of how accountability is carried out, but for the hierarchy-
adverse it’s by no means the only one.

There are as many organizational structures as there are
philosophies of collective action. But they virtually all share
one thing in common: for better or worse, they acknowledge
their own structure, instead of hiding behind unlikely and
obfuscating assertions of structurelessness. That acknowledg-
ment, and the accountability it fosters, is the only way to en-
sure effective and equitable decision-making.

PRINCIPLES

Consensus is a means, not on end p. 11 6

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 102

Don't mistake your group for society p. 130

Make new folks welcome p. 150

Delegate p. 122

We are all leaders p. 202

Enable, don’t command p. 132

THEORIES

Movement as network web
Cycles of social movements web

1 Structurelessness is often mistakenly conflated with absence of hierarchy, when in fact, effective non-
hierarchical forms of organizing actually require a great deal of structure. Anyone who has partici-
pated in an effectively facilitated general assembly or spokescouncil meeting will well understand this
distinction.

PRINCIPLE: Beware the tyranny of structurelessness

103

PRINCIPLE :

w Brand or be branded

IN SUM

Branding is one of the more
misunderstood communication
concepts, especially among
anti-corporate activists,
who can and should use
branding to their advantage.

EPIGRAPH

“Success means never letting
the competition define you.
Instead you have to define
yourself based on a point of
view you care deeply about.”

-Tom Chappell, Tom’s of Maine

PRACTITIONERS

Adbusters
ACT-UP
Gran Fury
Otpor!
Greenpeace
The Yes Men

FURTHER INSIGHT

Adbusters

www.adbusters.org

AIDS: Making Art &
Raising Hell

http://trb.la/w28Uab

Center for Applied Nonviolent
Action & Strategies [CANVAS/
Otpor!], “Protest and Persuasion”

http://trb. la/AxZcyP

CONTRIBUTED BY

Cristian Fleming

104

Branding is a dirty word for many activists, but it really just
means “the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relation-
ships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision
to choose one product or service over another.” If we take
branding out of the realm of consumption and into the inter-
play of ideas in the public sphere, then we see that the tools of
branding can be used for more than just selling soap.

Three important points to keep in mind about branding:

Branding isn’t inherently “corporate.” Branding is really
nothing more than a set of proven principles for associat-
ing, in the collective imagination, a certain word, phrase
or image with a set of emotions or ideas. There’s nothing
inherently capitalist about that. Corporations use branding
because it works. Anti-corporate activists can use it, too.

Branding can make the difference between success and failure.

Every movement wants its message to be heard, but simply
being right won’t sell your ideas. The human mind needs
to be persuaded.

There are copious examples of movements using brand-
ing effectively. In the ’90s, for instance, an adherence to a
certain aesthetic helped unify the Otpor! youth movement
that swept Serbia and ousted Slobodan Milosevic.

Whatever the context, if you craft your message for
your intended audience, then that audience will want to
know more. It’s as simple as engaging people in a dia-
logue that appeals to them. If they feel you aren’t talking
to them, they’ll ignore you — or worse, work against you.

You’ll be branded whether you like it or not, so be proactive.

Even conspicuously “unbranded” campaigns have a brand.
Despite its efforts to avoid defining itself, the Occupy
movement ended up with an effective brand when the
“99 %” meme organically emerged as the touchstone for
people within and outside the movement.

If you decline to brand yourself, you leave an opening
for other people — including enemies — to brand you
instead. Operating within someone else’s frame is always

PRINCIPLE: Brand or be branded

Even AdBusters' famous anti-branding philosophy uses strong branding conventions. Here's a sneaker from their
“black-spot" campaign, also known as the “unswoosh."

more difficult than operating within a frame that you
yourself have set. Think of your group’s brand as water
spewing out of a hose. You can either leave the hose on
the ground, or you can pick it up and direct its llow. Either
way, the water continues to llow — and if you don’t pick up
the hose, someone else will!

Branding is an opportunity to shape your message and
ultimately use the power of that message, its meaning, and its
delivery to win the war of ideas. There’s no such thing as an
unbranded campaign or movement — though there are plenty
of examples of poorly branded ones. Brand or be branded.

TACTICS

Human banner p. 56
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Identity correction p. 60
Media-jacking p. 72

PRINCIPLES

Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Show, don't tell p. 174
Consider your audience p. 118
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Think narratively p. 186
Reframe p. 168

Balance art and message p. 100
Seek common ground p. 170

THEORIES

Floating signifier p. 234
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Memes p. 242
The social cure p. 264

CASE STUDIES

Yomango p. 400
99% bat signal p. 278
Billionaires for Bush p. 296
Occupy Wall Street web
Harry Potter Alliance p. 322

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Branding, like anything, can be overdone.
If people feel like something is being “sold” to them, they’ll
respond negatively.

1 Seth Godin, “define: Brand," Seth’s Blog, December 13, 2009, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_
blog/2009/12/define-brand.html.

PRINCIPLE: Brand or be branded

PRINCIPLE :

w Bring the issue home

IN SUM

Creative activists can make an
otherwise abstract, far-away
issue relevant by making it
personal, visceral and local.

EPIGRAPH

“If facts are the seeds that
later produce knowledge and
wisdom, then the emotions
and the impressions of the
senses are the fertile soil in
which the seeds must grow.”

-Rachel Carson

PRACTITIONERS

CODEPINK Women for Peace
[ www.codepink.org ]

American Friends Service Committee
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Veterans for Peace
Amazon Watch
National People's Action Network
Occupy Together

FURTHER INSIGHT

Walk in Their Shoes action guide

www.codepink.org/shoes

Peace Ribbon Project [useful for
making a quilt on any issue]

www.codepink.org/peaceribbon

Bring Our War $$ Home
National Campaign

www.wardollarshome.org

Video: Rethink Afghanistan: Cost of War

http://trb.la/xLxf8b

CONTRIBUTED BY

Rae Abileah
Jodie Evans

The destruction of a far-off rainforest. The carnage of war
thousands of miles away. People care, but usually not enough
to act on that concern, at least until they understand viscerally
what’s at stake. Here are a few ways to bring the issue home to
people with creative visuals, powerful personal narratives and
by highlighting localized costs.

Show the human cost

When the Iraq War was raging, mainstream media didn’t
show the stream of flag-draped caskets coming off planes
or images of bombed buildings and dead Iraqis. Most
Americans, with the exception of military families, didn’t
viscerally feel the war’s impact. To bring the human cost of
war home, Nancy Kricorian, a CODEPINK activist in New
York City, stood outside her senator’s office and arranged
a row of shoes of all sizes tagged with the names of Iraqi
civilians who had been killed, and asked passersby to “walk
in their shoes.” Her gesture was picked up and repeated
across the country. In a similar spirit, veterans have met on
the beach in Santa Monica, California, every Sunday since
the start of the Iraq War, to set up a held of white crosses
in neat rows across the beach — one for each soldier who
has died. A powerful reminder of the human cost of war, at
once intimate and horrific.

Make it personal

Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum was recently
planning to expand its operations in the Peruvian Ama-
zon jungle. Well-researched pleas to halt the drilling got
nowhere. That all changed when a delegation of native
Achuar people (who would have been displaced by the
drilling, their ancestral lands ravaged) traveled to the U.S.
to share their story. The issue shifted from stopping an oil
project to defending the homes of these people. Occiden-
tal had to cancel the project, and the Achuar are pursuing
legal claims against Occidental for environmental dam-
age already done. Bringing forward the names, faces and
stories of your far-away issue makes the consequences of
inaction far more real and relevant.

106

PRINCIPLE: Bring the issue home

Put a price tag on it

If people don’t connect to the human cost of an issue,
reaching their pocketbooks is another route. In 2005,
when the historic Steinbeck Library in Salinas, California,
was threatened with closure due to drastic budget cuts,
farm workers and peace advocates joined forces and held
a twenty-four-hour read-in to keep the library open, draw-
ing attention to the money spent on waging wars rather
than other priorities. Before the read-in, few in Salinas
cared enough about the Iraq war to protest it; twenty-four
hours later, the entire community understood how the
high price of occupation affected them. When the local
consequences of global policies are highlighted, people’s
circle of concern often widens.

TACTICS

Creative disruption p. 18
Advanced leafleting p. 8
Invisible theater p. 66
Occupation p. 78
Art intervention web

PRINCIPLES

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Think narratively p. 186

THEORIES

Cultural hegemony p. 222
Action logic p. 208
Environmental justice p. 228
Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Stolen Beauty boycott campaign p. 364
Taco Bell boycott p. 372
Occupy Wall Street web

“Daughter of Hussein al Tarish, Age 3." A pair of shoes from CODEPINK's "Walk in Their Shoes" anti-war action.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Be careful not to focus solely on the fi-
nancial cost of the issue. Imagine if peace advocates only
held up signs about the amount of money spent on war, with
no mention of the lives lost. Use dollar figures only when it
makes sense.

PRINCIPLE: Bring the issue home

allenge patriarchy
as you organize

IN SUM

Like all other unjust and
arbitrary systems of authority
and power, patriarchy must
be actively challenged in
political organizing if we are to
achieve collective liberation.

EPIGRAPH

“Patriarchy is a political-social
system that insists that males
are inherently dominating,
superior to everything and
everyone deemed weak,
especially females, and
endowed with the right to
dominate and rule over the
weak and to maintain that
dominance through various
forms of psychological
terrorism and violence.”

-bell hooks

PRACTITIONERS

Guerrilla Girls
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Eve Easier
CODEPINK: Women for Peace

CONTRIBUTED BY

Harsha Walia

(Left to right) ‘I think she made the whole thing up.' ‘She’s just a crazy bitch.’ ‘Look, SWEETIE: class should come first.
The rest is just divisive.’ ‘It’s not really as bad as you say it is.' In order to be an effective comrade/ally you have to chal-
lenge patriarchy within yourself, and within the group. Art by Suzy Exposito.

Patriarchy is a system of unequal power relations that gives
men privileges in all areas of our lives — social, economic,
institutional, cultural, political, and spiritual — while women
and gender non-conforming people are systemically dis-
advantaged. Feminism is not about “man-hating”; it is about
transforming the socially constructed and hierarchical
ideology of patriarchy. Since patriarchy pervades society, it is
no surprise that it pervades social movements as well. So a
commitment to feminist praxis that challenges the toxic
impact of patriarchy in organizing efforts is essential to building
inclusive movements.

Given the urgency of confronting “big issues” like cor-
porate power, militarization and environmental destruc-
tion, patriarchy and sexism within our groups often remain
unaddressed. Some male allies feel they are not capable of
sexism; but simply believing in gender equality does not
erase male privilege. If we want to challenge patriarchy, we
must understand how our actions and assumptions are in-
fluenced by the prevalence of sexism in our consciousness
and social relations.

PRINCIPLE: Challenge patriarchy as you organize

There are five key ways in which sexism manifests itself in
our social movements:

1 Women face an uphill battle to prove their intelligence
and commitment as political activists.

2 Political meetings are dominated by male speakers and
leaders, while secretarial work, cooking, childcare, and
the emotional labor of supporting community well-be-
ing are largely borne by women. This gendered division
of labor is a frequently reproduced patriarchal pattern.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Alas!, “The Male Privilege Checklist,’’
Barry Deutsch

http://trb.la/yo1Smp

Colours of Resistance Archive, “Tools for
White Guys who are Working for Social
Change and other people socialized in a
society based on domination,’’ Chris Crass

http://trb.la/zlz2ml

Cherrie M oraga and Gloria E. Anzaldua,
eds. This Bridge Called My Back:
Writings by Radical Women of Color,
[Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press, 2002]

3 Women continue to be sexually objectified. Women of
color and femme women in particular are fetishized,
obscuring the dynamics of racism, fatphobia, ability
and hetero-patriarchy behind “personal preferences.”

4 Women are more likely to
challenge men on sexist com-
ments than men are. Given
the particular socialization
of women under patriarchy,
seemingly minor comments
or incidents can leave women
and gender non-conforming
people feeling humiliated,
angry or upset; yet such
comments are often dis-
missed as harmless. Women
discussing sexism are often
characterized as “divisive”
or “over-ractive” and wom-
en’s concerns are belittled unless validated by other
men. This highlights disrspect for women’s voices in
discussing their own oppression.

“Transforming
gender roles is
not about guilt
or blame; it is
about a lifelong
learning process
to effectively and
humbly confront
oppression.”

5 Feminism is not seen as central to revolutionary or col-
lective struggle; instead it is relegated to a special-inter-
est issue. This results in the trivialization of women’s
issues, particularly violence against women and repro-
ductive justice.

Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch:
Women, The Body, and Primitive
Accumulation,

[Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2004]

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism
without Borders: Decolonizing
Theory, Practicing Solidarity,

[Duke University Press, 2003]

Jessica Yee, ed. Feminism FOR REAL:
Deconstructing the academic industrial
complex of feminism, [Ottawa: Canadian
Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2011]

Video: Shit MANarchists Say
[YouTube Jan 25, 2012]

http://trb.la/zpgVWF

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

THEORIES

Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246
Environmental justice p. 228
Capitalism p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282

PRINCIPLE: Challenge patriarchy as you organize

Transforming gender roles is not about guilt or blame; it is
about a lifelong learning process to effectively and humbly
confront oppression. Some ways to build pro-feminist commu-
nities include: a shared division of labor; encouraging women’s
voices and leadership in non-tokenizing ways; respecting self-
identification by using preferred names and pronouns; be-
ing pro-active in breaking the silence around sexual violence
within broader society and activist communities; making our
groups safe spaces in which to raise and address issues; and
not marginalizing women’s issues or placing the sole responsi-
bility for fighting oppression on the oppressed.

We must also realize that we do not just want “more” women’s
representation; rather, we must actively facilitate and high-
light women’s own analysis and experiences of capitalism
and oppression, especially those of women of color. Though
patriarchy affects women much more severely, it distorts the
humanity of all genders and reduces our ability to be in kinship
with one another. Smashing patriarchy is not just a collective
responsibility — it is ultimately about personal and interper-
sonal growth and collective liberation.

1 This is an abridged version of a lengthier piece available on the Colours of Resistance website.

110

PRINCIPLE: Challenge patriarchy as you organize

DURING TIMES OF
UNIVERSAL DECEIT
TELLING THE TR
DECO

— George Orwell

oose tactics that
support your strategy

IN SUM

Don’t let an individual tactic
distract from a larger strategy.
Strategy is your overall
plan, and tactics are those
things you do to implement
the plan - a distinction
critical for structuring
effective campaigns.

EPIGRAPH

“If you don't have a strategy, you're
part of someone else's strategy."

-Alvin Toffler

PRACTITIONERS

National organizations:

ACORN

Industrial Areas Foundation
Midwest Academy
USAction

Center for Third World Organizing
National Peoples Action
PICO
Dart
Gamaliel

Center for Community Change

Issue groups, including:

Sierra Club

National Organization of Women [NOW)

Many local community organizations
and worker centers

Strategy involves identifying your group’s power and then
finding specific ways to concentrate it in order to achieve
your goals. Organizing a rally, for example, should never be
thought of as a strategy. It’s a tactic. Before you can identify
appropriate tactics, you need to identify your target see PRIN-
CIPLE: Choose your target wisely and figure out what power
you can bring to bear against it.

Developing a strategy requires:

• analyzing the problem;

• identifying your goal (formulation of demands);

• understanding your target- — who holds the power to
meet your demands;

• identifying specific forms of power you have over your
target and how to concentrate that power to maximal
effect.

If your target is a city councilor whose vote you need in
order to pass a living wage ordinance, tactics that concen-
trate your power must involve or influence voters in her dis-
trict in some way.

If your target is a bank that is carrying out foreclosures,
tactics that concentrate your power must involve or influ-
ence their customers or regulators.

Within that framework, tactics are specific activities that:

• mobilize a specific type and amount of power;

• are directed at a specific target;

• are intended to achieve a specific objective.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Janice Fine

In choosing a tactic you must always be able to answer the
question: “What is the power behind the tactic?” In other
words, how does the tactic give you leverage over your tar-
get?

We use tactics to demonstrate (or imply) a certain form
of power. For example, when we carry out an action against
a particular company, our underlying power is economic —

PRINCIPLE: Choose tactics that support your strategy

it must cost them time or customers. That’s why disruption
matters. If we target an elected official, our underlying power
is political — our tactic must cost them contributions or votes.
(The power to “embarrass” is only effective if embarrassing
your target costs them money or votes by making voters or
donors question their moral legitimacy. Embarrassment in
and of itself isn’t a form of power.)

In community organizing, power can be broken down into
two broad categories:

Strategic power

Power that is sufficiently strong to win the issue.

Tactical power

Power that can move you along toward a goal and help you

gain ground, but is itself not decisive.

Once we understand the forms of power we can deploy,
we are ready to develop our campaign plan.

A campaign is a series of tactics deployed over a specified
period of time, each of which builds the strength of the or-
ganization and puts increasing pressure on the target until
it gives in on your specific demands. A campaign is not a
series of events on a common theme; it is a series of tactics,
each one carefully selected for its power to ratchet up pres-
sure on a target over time. All tactics are connected, and
each one is chosen on the basis of how much work it requires
to pull off and how much pressure it will bring to bear.

A campaign is not endless; it has a beginning, middle
and end. It ends, ideally, in a specific victory: people get
something they wanted or needed, and/or the target agrees
to do something they previously refused to do.

1 The author wishes to acknowledge Midwest Academy and Northeast Action, both of whom assisted in
developing the curriculum that this module is based on.

2 Often it’s important to identify “secondary targets.” These are individuals who have significant
power over your target and over whom you may have more power than you have over your
primary target ( see CASE: Taco Bell Boycott ].

FURTHER INSIGHT

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A
Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
[New York: Random House, 1971]

Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals
[New York: Random House, 1989]

John Atlas, Seeds of Change
[Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt
University Press, 2010]

Gary Delgado, Organizing the
Movement: The Roots and Growth
of ACORN [Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press, 1986)

Michael Gecan, Going Public: An
Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action
[New York: Anchor Books, 2004)

Rogers, Mary Beth, Cold Anger [Austin,
TX: University of North Texas Press, 1990)

Mark Warren, Dry Bones Rattling:
Community Building to Revitalize
American Democracy [Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2001)

PRINCIPLES

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Put your target in a decision
dilemma p. 1 66
Escalate strategically p. 134
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
Praxis makes perfect p. 162
Think narratively p. 186

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232
Pillars of support p. 248
Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Taco Bell boycott p. 372
Justice for Janitors p. 326
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396
The salt march p. 354
Tar sands action p. 376

PRINCIPLE: Choose tactics that support your strategy

oose your target wisely

IN SUM

We increase our chances of
victory when our actions
target the person or entity
with the institutional power
to meet our demands.

EPIGRAPH

“Power concedes nothing
without a demand. It never
did and it never will.”

-Frederick Douglass

PRACTITIONERS

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Saul Alinsky & Midwest Academy
Industrial Workers of the World
UK Uncut

FURTHER INSIGHT

Dirks, Yutaka. “From the Jaws of Defeat:
Four Thoughts on Social Change Strategy."
Briarpatch Magazine [Nov.-Dee. 2011],

http://trb.la/AAb568

Alinksy, Saul. Rules for Radicals: A
Pragmatic Primer for Realistic
Radicals. New York: Vintage, 1989.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Yutaka Dirks

Victories don’t come by throwing fists in all directions at
once, hoping to land a knockout punch by chance alone.
Winning takes training, preparation and strategic think-
ing in order to land blows where they will have the greatest
impact. Choosing the right target and figuring out how to
effectively apply pressure is essential.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) chooses their targets wisely-they “Fight to Win."

Since the early 2000s, the Ontario Coalition Against Pov-
erty (OCAP), a radical anti-poverty organization based in
Toronto, Canada, has organized under the slogan “Fight to
Win.” It’s a simple slogan packed with meaning: to win, you’ve
got to fight. But the point isn’t to fight; the point is to win.

An organization run by and for the poor, OCAP has
proven extremely effective in compelling politicians, wel-
fare workers and employers to grant the concrete gains they
seek. In one of many successful actions, for example, OCAP
prevented a gas station from pumping gas until the employer
came out with money owed to a former employee. Similarly,
mass delegations by OCAP to welfare offices have led to the
reinstatement of benefits for low-income members. OCAP

PRINCIPLE: Choose your target wisely

has been effective because it recognizes that social change
conies through struggle, which involves articulating clear
demands and applying targeted pressure on those in power
to comply with those demands.

Nothing is more demor-
alizing to folks who have put
many long hours into a fun
and creative action than to
hear the target of the action
say: “I don’t have the power to
do that for you, even if I want-
ed to. The guy you want is next door.” (And actually have
that be a true statement rather than a blow-off line.) When
we plan our actions and campaigns, we have to understand
our targets and what makes them tick, taking care to focus
on the person with the power to meet our demands: to sign
the check, to introduce the legislation or to cancel the con-
tract.

Not every target is vulnerable in the same way. A block-
ade, occupation or creative disruption may be effective
against one target but not against another. What works once
may not work a second time. We need to figure out where
our target is weakest, and where we are strongest. What
actions can we take that are outside their experience? Nothing
rattles a target more than something they aren’t prepared
to deal with.

You might not have enough power to push your primary
target at first, but your actions may help you identify a secondary
target — an individual or group that can be pressured to
leverage their influence on the primary target. The Coali-
tion of Immokalee Workers, for instance, won their battle
by identifying and pressuring a secondary target (fast-food
corporations) when their primary target (tomato growers)
proved immovable see CASE: Taco Bell boycott.

We are creative folks. If we’re smart about where and how
we apply pressure, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.

“To win , you’ve got
to fight But the
point isn’t to fight;
the point is to win.”

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14
Sit-in web
General Strike p. 50

PRINCIPLES

Choose tactics that support
your strategy p. 112
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154
Put your target in a
decision dilemma p. 1 66
Pick battles big enough to matter,
small enough to win web

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 272
Pillars of support p.248
Activist realpolitik web

CASE STUDIES

Taco Bell boycott p. 372

PRINCIPLE: Choose your target wisely

PRINCIPLE :

w Consensus is a means, not an end

IN SUM

The two foundational values
of consensus decision making
are empowering every person’s
full participation in decision
making, and respecting and
accommodating diverse
opinions. These values are
more important than the
form itself, which activists
should modify as needed
to uphold these values.

EPIGRAPH

“The problem is not that of
taking power, but rather
who exercises it.”

-Subcomandante Marcos

PRACTITIONERS

Occupy General Assemblies
Spain's Indignados
Zapatistas ( EZLN ]
Anti-nuclear movements
of the ‘70s and ‘80s

FURTHER INSIGHT

Starhawk. The Empowerment Manual. A
Guide for Collaborative Groups.
Canada, New Society Publishers. 2011.

Butler, C. T., and Amy Rothstein. On
Conflict and Consensus: A Handbook on
Formal Consensus Decisionmaking.

http://www.ic.org/pnp/ocac/

Speck, Andreas. “Consensus Decision
Making.’’ War Resisters inter-
national, October 14, 2008.

http://www.wri-irg.org/node/5165

CONTRIBUTED BY

Harsha Walia

Consensus decision making is an egalitarian and inclusive
method of reaching agreement based on the active partici-
pation and consent of group members to collectively reach
a decision. Consensus decision making focuses as much on
the underlying processes and values as the decision itself.
The word consensus has its roots in the Latin word consentire,
meaning “to experience or feel together.”

Consensus is rooted in many decentralized models of
direct democracy practiced across the world — from village
panchayats in India to the indigenous Haudenosaunee
Confederacy (aka Iroquois), from Quaker meetings to anar-
chist spokescouncils.

Consensus stands in stark contrast to simple voting
procedures or Robert’s Rules of Order, in which proposals
are debated and then voted on, with majority rule. Consen-
sus, on the other hand, is a prehgurative affirmation of our
power to organize ourselves in accordance with the princi-
ples of direct democracy: horizontal, participatory, inclusive,
cooperative and non-coercive. As author David Graeber has
written of consensus, “Ultimately it aspires to reinvent daily
life as whole.”

A common abuse of consensus, however, is a dogmatic
attachment to the structures and forms with which it is
associated, which can sometimes be as exclusive and alienat-
ing as the systems it seeks to replace. If this is happening, the
response should not be “Well this is how consensus works!”
Instead, it is our collective responsibility to delve into the
dynamics that might be creating these negative reactions.

There are five common problems with consensus that
can create frustration. First, consensus often reproduces
majoritarian rule by creating sectarian camps of those in
agreement versus those who are blocking. Contrary to popular
belief, consensus does not necessarily mean unanimous
agreement. This misconception causes us to wrongly view dis-
sent as a distraction or obstacle, and increases the pressure
toward homogenizing opinions. Second, a few voices can
dominate the discussion, a problem that tends to perpetuate
power imbalances around race, class, gender, and education
level. Third, there is often a faulty assumption that silence im-

116

PRINCIPLE.Consensus is a means, not an end

“ A dogmatic
attachment to
the structures and
forms of consensus
can sometimes be
as exclusive and
alienating as the
systems it seeks
to replace."

plies consent, which can end up
stifling broader discussion and
the consideration of alternative
proposals. Fourth, facilitators
have an unfortunate tendency
to exercise covert forms of pow-
er-over rather than power-with by
steering the conversation based
on their own biases.

The fifth problem with con-
sensus is more fundamental
and structural. Ironically, the
seemingly benign notion that
all voices are equal can hide the
uncomfortable truth of system-
ic inequality. Almost inherently, the consensus process can
absolve us of actively examining how privilege and oppression
shape our spaces.

In an effort to address these problems, many communities
and collectives use modified forms of consensus — for exam-
ple, prioritizing and taking leadership from women, people
of color and those directly affected by decisions being made;
facilitating small break-out groups to ensure more engaged
participation; encouraging more debate and discussion rather
than just asking for blocks; and actively incorporating
anti-oppression principles to prevent harmful opinions from
further marginalizing historically disadvantaged peoples.

Consensus can be beautiful and transformative, but only
when the structures and processes are meeting the needs
and desires of those engaging in it. Otherwise, it can be just
as shackling as more conventionally authoritative decision-
making systems. Remember, consensus is a means to an end,
not an end unto itself.

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Mass street action p. 68
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
General strike p. 50

PRINCIPLES

We are all leaders p. 202
Take leadership from
the most impacted p. 180
Beware the tyranny
of structurelessness p. 102
Don't mistake your
group for society p. 130
Challenge patriarchy as
you organize p. 108
Enable, don't command p. 132
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Praxis makes perfect p. 162
Delegate p. 122

THEORIES

Anti-oppression p. 212
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Intellectuals and power p. 240
Anarchism web

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web
Battle in Seattle p. 286

PRINCIPLE: Consensus is a means, not an end

onsider your audience

If a banner drops in the forest
and your target audience isn’t
around to see it, will it make

a difference? Probably not.

“Working with media resources"

http://wri-irg.org/node/5246

FURTHER INSIGHT

War Resisters International,

CONTRIBUTED BY

Sally Kohn

IN SUM

When evaluating the success of a particular action, it doesn’t
matter what you think about your creative poster or press
release or civil disobedience. All that matters is what your
audience thinks. Protesting solely for the sake of self-expres-
sion and self-gratification? That’s the political equivalent of
masturbation. Political action that is carefully and thought-
fully designed and executed to cause a reaction or response
from a targeted audience? Now that is making love!

If you’ve already thought up some awesome, off-the-wall
action and are now trying to figure out who you want to reach
with it, you’re doing it backwards. The point of creative po-
litical action isn’t simply to be creative, but to have a desired
impact on a particular audience. First identify your target
audience and then brainstorm actions to effectively convey
your message. A guerrilla musical performance of the latest
Justin Bieber hit would be awesome — unless you’re trying
to influence the members of the American Association of
Retired Persons.

Remember that there is no right audience, just the audi-
ence that is right for your particular goals. Try this basic
formula: we can get A to do B if they believe C. A is your
audience, B is your objective and C is your message. Design
your action or actions toward getting A to believe C.

If your core tactics and actions aren’t explicitly and stra-

118

PRINCIPLE: Consider your audience

tegically designed to get the
desired impact on your target
audience, you’re not being stra-
tegic. That Bieber number may
be fun and the hits on YouTube
astronomical, but will it reach
your senior citizen target audi-
ence? Baby, quit playin’.

Traditional artists don’t
necessarily worry about their
audience’s experience. For
them, creative self-expression
may suffice. But for political
artists, the audience is every-
thing. The purpose of political
art is the reaction of those who
over your tree in a grand act of
people are watching, and that
noise.

“If you’ve already
thought up some
awesome , off-the-
wall action and
are now trying
to figure out who
you want to reach
with it, you’re doing
it backwards.’’

experience it. When you push
theatrics, make sure the right
they hear one heckuva loud

TACTICS

Artistic vigil p. 10
Human banner p. 56
Banner hang p. 12
Creative disruption p. 18
Advanced leafleting p. 8

PRINCIPLES

Choose tactics that

support your strategy p. 112

Choose your target wisely p. 114

No one wants to watch a drum circle p. 156

Do the media’s work for them p. 124

Reframe p. 168

Shift the spectrum of allies p . 172

Think narratively p. 186

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Make your actions both concrete

and communicative p. 154

Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160

Stay on message p. 178

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208

Expressive and instrumental actions p. 232
Hashtag politics p. 238
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Floating signifier p. 234

CASE STUDIES

The Big Donor Show p. 294
99% bat signal p. 278
The salt march p. 354

PRINCIPLE: Consider your audience

PRINCIPLE :

w Debtors of the world, unite!

IN SUM

Today the burden of debt unites
millions in common struggle,
providing the basis of a new
mass movement and new forms
of large-scale organizing.

PRACTITIONERS

Take Back the Land

FURTHER INSIGHT

John Ralston Saul, “Unsustainable levels
of debt.” The Doubter's Companion

http://trb.la/xaulP2

Deena Stryker, “Why Iceland
Should Be in the News, But Is Not.”
Truthout, August 15, 2011.

http://trb.la/wdUrvm

CONTRIBUTED BY

Dmytri Kleiner

120

From 2009 to the present, countries from the UK to Chile have
seen an upsurge of student strikes and school occupations
to protest raising tuition fees. The 2011 Spanish indignados
uprising began under the slogan “we are not goods in the hands
of politicians and bankers.” A few months later, encampment
protests began in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard demand-
ing public housing. Student debt and housing debt are central
themes in the Occupy movement, which from a few tents in
New York City spread worldwide.

These movements were able to build popular support
because they focused on specific conditions. Many people are
unable to afford education, health care, housing and child care.
These conditions all reflect the growing debt burden that many
carry. Essential goods like housing, education and health care
have relatively inelastic demand, which means the limit to their
price is basically everything you have plus everything you can borrow.
Meanwhile, consumer spending, the engine of the economy,
is increasingly fuelled not by rising wages, but by cheap credit,
resulting in greater and greater levels of consumer debt. Today
the issue of debt unites millions in a common struggle.

Building a mass movement around debt, like building
any mass movement, is a consciousness-raising process. For
the people to be united in a movement, they must possess a
consciousness of their common interests and their common
enemies. There must be a consciousness of class, and a willing-
ness to understand that the only way to change class conditions
is to unite and fight. Major social changes occur when people
unite around a common cause.

Debt is at the core of the market system itself, and the
solution is not better terms alone, but alternatives to that
system. Instead of the conservative motto “fair financial
terms from honest bankers,” we must paint our banners
with the words “Abolition of the debt system.” Debtors of the
world, unite!

New forms of struggle require new forms of organization
to directly fight for changes. Debtors’ unions are one such
form: organizing debtors to collectively bargain for favorable
terms for existing debtors. Just as labor unions bargain for im-
proved wages and working conditions through the threat of

PRINCIPLE: Debtors of the world, unite!

• ••>

TACTICS

Debt strike p. 24
Eviction blockade p. 44

PRINCIPLES

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 17 2

THEORIES

Debt revolt p. 226
The commons p. 220
Capitalism p. 216

San Precario, the Patron Saint of Precarious Workers, emerged as an iconographic figure within Italy in 2004. Dedicat-
ed to critiquing casual employment contracts and the burden of debt, San Precario spread by playing off of the many
rituals of saint idolisation, as in the saint card pictured here.

refusal to work, debtors unions could use organized refusals
to pay debts to bargain.

Drawing on mass support from millions of people strug-
gling to pay their bills, we can build a movement that aspires to
far more than small reforms to banking and bankruptcy rules,
but that challenges the entire capitalist system and its drive to
profit from imposing scarcity on essential goods like education,
housing, child care and health care. As we find our way across
this new terrain, we must keep our eyes on the big prize: not
better terms alone, but alternatives to the market system.

PRINCIPLE: Debtors of the world, unite!

elegate

IN SUM

In the final analysis,
groups don’t get things
done, people do. Delegate!

EPIGRAPH

“Leadership is getting
people to want to do what
you want them to do.”

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

FURTHER INSIGHT

David Allen, Getting Things Done:
The Art of Stress-Free
Productivity. Penguin, 2002.

Merlin Mann, “Getting started with
‘Getting Things Done,'” 43 Folders

http://trb.la/zKXViR

The principles of democratic
structuring outlined by Jo Freeman
in “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”

http://trb.la/ywAM7u

Francesca Polletta, Freedom Is an
Endless Meeting: Democracy in
American Social Movements.
University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Art Intervention: San Precario, Patron
Saint of Precarious Workers

http://temporaryculture.wordpress.

com/san-precario2/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Josh Bolotsky
Andrew Boyd

Things get done
only when the task
is clearly defined
and on someone’s
to-do list”

One flaw of group work is that
it’s easy to walk out of a meeting
with no assigned tasks, think-
ing “someone else is going to
do that.” Obviously, if everyone
thinks that, nothing gets done.

Just because the group comes
to consensus on the need for
something to get done doesn’t

mean anyone is necessarily going to do it. Things get done only
when the task is clearly defined and on someone’s to-do list.

This principle may sound simple and obvious, but you’d
be shocked how often we forget it.

Make sure every group meeting has a note-taker who
records all tasks and who’s agreed to do them, and then emails
or otherwise shares that task list with the whole group soon
after the meeting (same day, if possible). To ensure effective
follow-through, have people explicitly commit to their tasks
in front of the group, and begin each meeting by reviewing
the last meeting’s task list.

Some responsibilities are limited to a single action item,
such as, “reserve a room for next week’s meeting.” But other
responsibilities — say, “organize a press conference” — often
involve a whole complex of tasks and the contributions of a
number of people over many days. That’s when you may need
someone to “bottom-line.” A bottom-liner doesn’t do every-
thing herself, but takes responsibility for ensuring everything
gets done. If people on her team don’t come through, it’s her
responsibility to find someone else, triage, or do it herself. It
doesn’t ultimately matter how the job gets done, just that she
is accountable to the larger group for ensuring that it does, or
explaining why it didn’t.

Proper delegation and sharing of tasks is also one of the
best ways to prevent burn-out see PRINCIPLE: Pace yourself.

Regardless of whether your group has a more vertical or
horizontal leadership structure, delegation is key. Good lead-
ers know how to delegate tasks, how to choose and support
bottom-liners (some of the best people won’t step up unless
they’re asked), and how to make sure everyone knows their

PRINCIPLE: Delegate

role. Be explicit. People don’t want vague responsibilities.
They want to know what their role is and why it’s important.

Volunteer and grassroots groups often struggle with partic-
ipants who commit to doing something but then never follow
through. You have to factor that in upfront. Be careful when
giving critical tasks to an untested volunteer. Here’s the stan-
dard conversation one of the authors has with new volunteers:

PRINCIPLES

Beware the tyranny of
structurelessness p. 102
Don’t mistake your group
for society p. 130
Enable, don't command p. 132
We are all leaders p. 202

“Do you know the most important word in a volunteer’s
vocabulary?”

“Um, no.”

THEORIES

Dunbar's Number web
Anarchism web

“Exactly.”

“Huh?”

“‘No’ is the most important word you can say. Use it. A lot.
If you say ‘yes I can do it’ out of guilt or an over-enthusiasm
that you can’t follow through on, then we’re screwed. I’d much
prefer a ‘No.’ Then we can assign the task to someone whose
‘Yes’ means yes.”

Far from being onerous, this is actually empowering — and
honoring. You’re saying: your work is valuable enough that
we need to have a solid commitment and the specifics nailed
down. That’s a principle, by the way, that’s not just true for
volunteers but for the whole team.

PRINCIPLE: Delegate

123

PRINCIPLE :

w Do the media’s work for them

IN SUM

Often journalists want to
cover an important issue, but
can’t for editorial reasons. The
right creative action [that you
photograph or film yourself]
can give them the excuse
or materials they need.

EPIGRAPH

“Don’t hate the media,
become the media.”

-Jello B infra

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men
Agit-Pop Communications
Code Pink
Greenpeace

FURTHER INSIGHT

Salzman, Jason. Making the News:
A Guide For Activists And Non-
profits : Revised And Updated.
U.S.A. Basic Books 2003

National Media Conference
for Progressives:

http://www.truespinconference.com

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum

124

If you want media coverage of your event, give them a
story they can’t refuse: one that makes your point very clearly,
with great visuals, an unexpected twist or a lot of humor. If a
journalist already wants to cover an issue, this assist will give
them the excuse or extra ammunition they need to sell their
editor on it.

Don’t worry about squeezing all the relevant information
into the stunt or hoax itself. If you can, great, but most of the key
info can be conveyed via an accompanying press release. The
action itself just needs to provide a hook or entry point by lifting
the veil on a black-and-white situation and pointing out obvi-
ous but seldom discussed truths. If your action does this well,
journalists will enjoy writing about it and public opinion (along
with a well-orchestrated activist campaign) can do the rest.

When the Yes Men announced that the Chamber of
Commerce was supporting climate change legislation, or that
Dow was going to accept its responsibility for Bhopal, or that
General Electric was giving back its $3.2 billion tax credit,
these were just funny actions pointing to simple, undeniable
realities: the Chamber was mad to not support climate-change
legislation, Dow should clean up Bhopal, GE should pay its tax-
es. Many journalists want to write about these obvious truths,
but for editorial reasons, cannot. Creating a funny, spectacu-
lar action that’s all about an issue allows them to cover it.

Make the journalists’ job as simple as possible. Provide
them with what they need: a concise press release, photo with
clear permissions, or a good video news release, replete with
the facts, figures and soundbites that illustrate your point.

It’s imperative to document your action yourself and make
your photos and footage available. The glitter-bombing of
Newt Gingrich see: TACTIC: Creative Disruption wouldn’t have
gone viral if there hadn’t been an accomplice videotaping it.
When Brad Newsham organizes human banners, he hires a
helicopter and professional photographer to fly overhead,
then passes those photos to interested media outlets that
couldn’t make it out there themselves.

The stealthier the action, the more important it is to doc-
ument it yourself. Nobody but the organizers of flash mobs
or guerrilla musicals know when and where they’re going to

PRINCIPLE: Do the media’s work for them

TACTICS

Creative disruption p. 18
Flash mob p. 46
Hoax p. 54
Human banner p. 56

PRINCIPLES

Keep it simple web

Play to the audience that Isn't there p.160
Make it funny web
Show, don't tell p. 174
Team up with experts p. 184

THEORIES

The propaganda model p. 256

CASE STUDIES

Survive balls take the UN by storm web
Public Option Annie p. 346
Yes Men pose as Exxon web
Dollar bills on stock exchange floor web

Knowing their 1969 marriage would be widely publicised, John and Yoko decided to do the media's work for them.
Spending their honeymoon in bed, talking about peace, they directed their own media event through their actions,
words, and the signs they posted behind them: “ Hair peace, bed peace".

occur, so you have to integrate photographers and videogra-
phers into those actions. But afterwards, don’t just post your
stuff on Flickr and YouTube and hope for the best. Instead,
have a plan for getting those visuals out to the media. When
Agit-Pop carried out the Public Option Annie guerrilla mu-
sical, they did a lightning edit of their footage immediately
after the action and got it out to key outlets within the day’s
news cycle. MSNBC, CNN, and Comedy Central all built
stories around the footage.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Many journalists will be loath to directly
use footage that has a strong editorial slant, but it might still
prompt them to do their own story.

PRINCIPLE: Do the media’s work for them

125

/g\ PRINCIPLE :

w Don’t dress like a protester

IN SUM

If you look like a stereotypical
protester, it’s easy for people
to write you off. If you look
like someone who doesn’t
usually hit the streets (the
guy next door or an airline
pilot in full uniform], people
can more easily identify
with you. Therefore, don’t
dress like a protester.

EPIGRAPH

“Dress like a Republican so you
can talk like an anarchist.”

-Colman McCarthy

PRACTITIONERS

ArTmani

Pret a Revolter - http://leodecerca.
net/proyectos/pret-a-revolter/

Masquerade Project
Billionaires for Bush
Tute Bianche - http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Tute_ Bianche

Ladies Against Women
The Orange Alternative
The Ya Basta Association

FURTHER INSIGHT

Subversive Business Outfits
as Tactical Camouflage :

http://www.suitsforwallstreet.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

126

People don’t care about protesters. Oh, there go those silly protesters
again. What are they protesting this time'? Look: the police are hitting
them over the head! Well, they must have done something to deserve it.

It’s not quite that bad, but you get the idea. Based on what
they see in the media, folks get a fairly fixed idea of what “pro-
testers” look like — and the stereotype doesn’t usually lend
itself to immediate sympathy for your cause. If you’re planning
a mass street action and want to reach out to people who may
not already agree with you, think about howyou can undermine
their stereotypes about “protesters” see PRINCIPLE: Use others’
prejudices against them. Remember: protest is what you are doing ;
it is not your identity see THEORY: Political identity paradox.

If you want schoolteachers, seniors and office workers to
get angry that a cop is hitting you over the head, dress like
you’re on your way over to their house for Sunday dinner.
Make it easy for them to imagine themselves, or their kids, in
your position.

Consider the aura conveyed by what you wear, whether
that’s the civility and seriousness of civil rights marchers in
suit and tie or the calculated absurdity of “Billionaires” in
tuxedos. In all ten years that Billionaires for Bush see CASE
protested in the streets, including in the midst of some run-
ning street battles with police, never did a single one of us get
arrested. It undoubtedly helped that most of us were white, but
it also helped that most of us were wearing tuxedos. In New
York, we had a one-liner: “New York’s Finest would never arrest
New York’s finest dressed.” And it was true. They never did.

Of course, the action you’re involved in may not afford
the luxury of tuxedos, or generally leave you a lot of room
to not dress like a protester. It may require protective gear:
bandannas or gas masks to protect from tear gas; heavy cloth-
ing or even shields to protect yourself from billy clubs and
rubber bullets. Even then, creativity can show the human and
beautiful side of dissent. At the Battle in Seattle, many block-
ades were works of art, and many blockaders were creatively
costumed. Or consider the Masquerade Project in New York,
decorating gas masks with multicolored sequins and feathers,
or the Tute Bianche in Italy or the Pret a Revolter collective
in Spain, or the “Book Bloc” in the UK, all of which wore ere-

PRINCIPLE: Don’t dress like a protester

TACTICS

Mass street action p. 68
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Street theater web

PRINCIPLES

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Show, don't tell p. 174
Consider your audience p.118
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Use others' prejudices against them p. 192

THEORIES

Political Identity Paradox p. 254

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 28 6
Billionaires for Bush p. 296
Occupy Wall Street web

Over 700 Continental and United pilots, demonstrate in front of the New York Stock Exchange, September, 2011. Their
sharp pilot uniforms and military marching pattern are a far cry from the standard protester stereotype.

ative yet protective protest gear into battle, thereby subverting
the official media narrative that protesters are violent, scary
and (worst of all!) humorless.

Often the most effective protests are those that don’t look
like protests. Perhaps to be effective — to quote a character
in Peter Carey’s novel The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith — “you
will have to make yourself into something beyond anyone’s
capacity to imagine you.”

PRINCIPLE: Don’t dress like a protester

127

on t just brainstorm, artstorm!

IN SUM

When seeking to awaken
collective intelligence,
brainstorming can only get you
so far. “Artstorming” invites
participants to jump directly
into the unmediated experience
of creation, engaging the
full spectrum of our creative
intelligence. Better ideas, and
often amazing creations, result.

EPIGRAPH

“Often such little small cultural
experiments open up space
and possibility for the bigger
changes to happen. The real
seeds for revolutionary changes
can grow in artistic practices.”

-John Jordan

PRACTITIONERS

Art in Action
Bread and Puppet Theater
Practicing Freedom

FURTHER INSIGHT

Bronson, Po, and Ashley
M erryman, “Forget Brainstorming,"
Newsweek, July 12, 2010.

Kevin Buckland, on line pamphlet, How to
Organize an Art Build, 350.org,

http://trb.la/xz4ITY

“Artstorming
creates space
for the spatially,
kinesthetically and
musically gifted
folks who might
be alienated from a
, , t . verbal brainstorm ”

can reduce a group s creativity.

So when collectively designing an arts action, instead of brain-
storming, try artstorming!

When artstorming, instead of a blank wall where people
write up ideas from the group, everyone stands up and starts
improvising together with all the tools at hand. Instead of
theorizing about what would look or sound good, they try it out.
It starts with physical movement (proven to enhance creative
output), then some form of improvisation (word association, or
improv theater games) which prepares the brain to take risks.
Artstorming is useful because it:

Brainstorm sessions should be
a great way for groups to arrive
at an idea that is better than an
idea that an individual could
have come up with alone, but
they often don’t work that way.
In a big group, the ideas of a
few people who feel confident
enough to share their half-
baked musings tend to drown
out the rest. Yale researchers
actually found that brainstorming

Makes space for multiple intelligences and fluencies: Art-
storming creates space for the spatially, kinesthetically
and musically gifted folks who might be alienated from a
verbal brainstorm.

Invites people to be fully present: By engaging the full spec-
trum of our creative intelligence, artstorming taps into
parts of us that might be snoozing most of the time. These
parts will be badly needed in an arts action.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Levana Saxon

Supports creativity: In an artstorm, people’s honest
expression of the feelings and ideas that brought the group
together in the hrst place are safe to come out and play, so
more expression happens.

PRINCIPLE: Don't just brainstorm, artstorm!

Is anti-capitalist: That’s right. Hakim Bey asserts that
under capitalism we have become increasingly alienated
from our direct experiences with each other and with our
art. Artstorming is an opportunity to reconnect with our-
selves, our art, and each other.

To design an artstorm, begin with the simple question,
“What art could we use to effectively tell X message to Y audi-
ence to achieve Z result?” (X, Y and Z are figured out prior).
Use a brainstorm (not all brainstorms are bad) to list all of
the different art media possible, including both visual and
performance arts. Next, break up the room into groups that
will artstorm using one to three media of their choice to
develop their message. After ten minutes, have each group
report back and give each other feedback so each can arrive
at a focus for the next stage. Allow people to switch groups at
this time if they’d like. Now the real artstorm begins, focusing
on a single idea from the first round with a group of people
who all want to make it happen. Invite people to take turns
experimenting, with minimal verbal feedback. Eventually,
groups will hit on an idea that works and morph into a group-
led process of artistic co-creation.

TACTICS

Forum theater p. 48
Image theater p. 62

PRINCIPLES

Praxis makes perfect p. 162
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Consider your audience p. 118
Don't confuse your strat-
egy and your tactic web
Balance art and message p. 100

THEORIES

Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) p. 270
Theater of the Oppressed p. 272

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Some people may find an artstorm terrifying.
Don’t force people to do it or assume everyone is comfort-
able working this way. For those who declare discomfort with
spontaneous creative work, give them a different role: say,
offering verbal feedback to ensure that the groups are staying
on-message.

PRINCIPLE: Don’t just brainstorm, artstorm!

PRINCIPLE :

on t mistake your group
for society

IN SUM

Don’t get too caught up in
trying to make your little
activist group “inclusive,”
“democratic,” or other
qualities that we all want
for society. Why? Because
your group isn’t society.

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men
Earth First!

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum

“To operate
effectively, a small
group may need
to operate like
an army battalion
or the crew of a
sailboat, with
clear divisions
of roles and
responsibilities.”

Sure, we should all try to be
the change we want to see in
the world see: PRINCIPLE. We

should also think hard about
who we are, what we’re fight-
ing for and why we’re fighting
for it. We should mull over the
future society we want and how
we can best model it in the here
and now. We should even read
books about it. But no matter
how much we get absorbed
in thinking about society, we
should never mistake our activ-
ist groups for society.

For example, we want soci-
ety to be democratic, but our bands cannot be models of the
sort of democracy we’re fighting for. Like families and rebel
units, affinity groups aren’t models for how society should be.
Even a well-functioning, happy group may have unelected
leaders. Decisions may be taken without fully consulting all
members — or even any members. These would be odious
practices if extended to society as a whole, but can be perfect-
ly acceptable in a small group, where formal mechanisms are
unnecessary because all members share a basic level of trust.

We obviously don’t want society to be a place where everyone
must fulfill their duty punctually and without complaint; we
want real freedom, which is why turbo-capitalism is anathema
to many of us. Yet to operate effectively, a small group may
need to operate like an army battalion, or, more poeti-
cally, like the crew of a sailboat, with clear divisions of roles
and responsibilities. And there may be dictators: while
one or two people can’t usually do all the work, it may
be that one or two people must make all the decisions,
especially in the heat of action, so that things happen quickly.

If you’re in a group that works, at some point you
may figure out the hidden interpersonal rules that en-

PRINCIPLE: Don’t mistake your group for society

able the whole thing to crank along. Don’t be appalled
when you do. Those rules probably have nothing to do
with democratic principles or consensus, but are based
on intuitive navigation of face-to-face relationships.
Often, whoever has the most energy simply makes things hap-
pen, and ends up making most of the decisions. Even when
the starting model is consensus, the formal consensus process
often gets jettisoned and the active members simply coordi-
nate informally to get it all done. Why not take a shortcut and
skip the formal consensus step, period?

If your group was working well and then ceases to, could
it be that you’ve complicated the decision making process
through “openness,” and, to put it brutally, the wrong people
have taken control?

HOW THE OPPOSITE IS EQUALLY TRUE: This is a case in which the
opposite is often equally true, especially in larger groups ! See
almost any of the related principles.

PRINCIPLES

Consensus is a means, not an end p. 116

\Ne are all leaders p. 202

Enable, don't command p. 132

Delegate p. 122

Beware the tyranny of

structurelessness p. 102

Challenge patriarchy as

you organize p. 108

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 180

Be the change you want to see web

Be an ethical prankster web

CASE STUDIES

New York Times “Special Edition" web
Billionaires for Bush p. 29 6

PRINCIPLE: Don't mistake your group for society

131

PRINCIPLE :

w Enable, don’t command

IN SUM

Supportive, enabling
leaders awaken the creative
potential of participants.

EPIGRAPH

“Leaders who do not act
dialogically, but insist on
imposing their decisions, do
not organize the people -
they manipulate them. They
do not liberate, nor are they
liberated: they oppress.”

- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

PRACTITIONERS

Lysistrata Project
Transition Towns

CONTRIBUTED BY

Kathryn Blume

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Distributed action p. 36
Carnival protest web

PRINCIPLES

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176
This ain’t the Sistene Chapel p. 188
Delegate p. 122
Create levels of participation web
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

THEORIES

Temporary Autonomous Zone [TAZ] p. 270
The tactics of everyday life p. 268

“The value of
the ‘supportive,
enabling leader ’
approach is
that it unlocks
the creativity,
ingenuity, and
innovation of
everyone involved
in the project
or cause. ”

al structure with a compelling,

inspiring vision, and then spend his/her time encouraging
others to participate and assisting them in maximizing their
creative contributions.

The value of the “supportive, enabling leader” approach is
that it unlocks the creativity, ingenuity, and innovation of every-
one involved in the project or cause. Participants are inspired to
engage because of the positive vision, and then encouraged to
learn new skills, take on new challenges, and become supportive,
enabling leaders in their own right. The long-term success of
the project or cause isn’t dependent on one person’s energy and
presence. Rather, it’s a combination of the beautiful juiciness
of the vision and the creative synergy of large numbers of
people working together to realize that vision.

There’s one style of leadership
in which a charismatic, com-
manding leader serves as the
public face of a project, sets up
a vertical organizational struc-
ture, and then brings a whole
lot of people along for the ride.
The job of everyone else is to
serve, support, and follow the
commands of the charismatic,
commanding leader. It’s a very
top-down approach.

Conversely, there’s a style of
leadership which is far more
bottom-up, in which the job of
the supportive, enabling leader
is to set up a lateral organization-

132

CASE STUDIES

Lysistrata Project p. 330

PRINCIPLE: Enable, don’t command

NOT ONLY MUST

great ideas have

THEY MUST ALSO HAVE

LANDING GEARS

— Unknown

PRINCIPLE :

w Escalate strategically

IN SUM

If dissident political groups
tend to become more extreme
over time, then good leaders
should help define what
‘extreme’ in constructive
ways looks like.

PRACTITIONERS

Earth First!

FURTHER INSIGHT

Canvas Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective
Nonviolent Action, available on line:

http://trb.la/yTS9mF

Helvey, Robert L. On Strategic Nonviolent
Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals.
Boston:The Albert Einstein Institution,
2004. Avail on line:

http://trb.la/wrZOtw

Beyond the Choir, “Activists
Caught in the Filter Bubble"

http://trb.la/AasOwe

Beyond the Choir, “What Prevents
Radicals from Acting Strategically?

[Part 2: Encapsulation )"

http://trb.la/wDgKch

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

John Lewis and Jim Zwerg of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee after being beaten during the Freedom
Rides. Photo of a museum exhibit.

There is a tendency within highly cohesive political groups to
want to turn up the heat. It seems to be written into the social
DNA of oppositional political groups: when group members’
level of commitment increases, they want to go further. They want
to be a little more hardcore. This tendency toward escalation
and increased militancy can be a good thing — but not inevi-
tably. It all depends on how hardcore is defined within the cul-
ture of the group. It can either move a cause forward — or send
it into a dangerous or dysfunctional downward spiral.

Compare the trajectories of Students for a Democratic So-
ciety (SDS) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com-
mittee (SNCC) — two of the most important radical youth
organizations of the 1960s. Students for a Democratic Society
imploded in 1969 and the Weather Underground was born be-
cause some leaders succeeded in defining hardcore to mean
immediate armed guerrilla struggle against the U.S. government — an
absurd prospect for their context. In the case of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), on the other
hand, some very astute leaders defined hardcore to mean acts
such as going into the most segregated areas in the south and

134

PRINCIPLE: Escalate strategically

organizing some of the poor-
est, least educated, and most
disenfranchised people in the
entire country. SNCC engaged
in other more visible “hardcore”
tactics as well.

In both cases, hardcore
really was HARDCORE. (You
can’t satiate the desire for
hardcore with anything less!)

Members of both groups dem-
onstrated overwhelming levels
of commitment to the values of
the groups they belonged to. Members of both groups risked
their lives, were imprisoned and brutalized, and some lost
their lives. But hardcore was defined strategically in the case of
SNCC, and tragically in the case of the Weather Underground.

Good leaders anticipate the emergent desire for hardcore —
for escalation — and they own it. They model it themselves. And
they make sure that the expression of hardcore is designed to
strengthen bonds between the group’s core members and its
broader political base. It should feel hardcore to the participants,
and it should look like moral leadership to the political base and to
a broader public.

a tendency
toward increased
militancy ... can
either move a cause
forward or send
it in a dangerous
and dysfunctional
direction.”

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32

Blockade p. 14

General strike p. 50

Strategic nonviolence p. 88

Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76

Creative distribution p. 18

PRINCIPLES

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel
support your strategy p. 13 6
Choose your target wisely p. 114
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Consider your audience p . 118
Take risks, but take care p. 182
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196
Anger works best when you have
the moral highground p. 96
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

THEORIES

Political identity paradox p. 254
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Points of intervention p. 250

CASE STUDIES

Citizens' Posse p. 300
Battle in Seattle p. 286
The salt march p. 354
Tar sands action p. 376

PRINCIPLE: Escalate strategically

IWCII’LE :

veryone

balls/ovaries of steel

IN SUM

Courage is in the eye
of the beholder.

PRACTITIONERS

Abbie Hoffman

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum

“What the Yes
Men have, which
is mistaken for
courage, is a need
to follow through on
crazy ideas (single-
mindedness), and
an ability to goad
each other on to do
so (peer pressure).”

the contexts in which the Yes

Men operate are entirely without threat, populated mainly by
timid, polite men in suits who would never endanger their rep-
utation by hitting someone.

What the Yes Men have, which is mistaken for courage, is
a need to follow through on crazy ideas (single-mindedness),
and an ability to goad each other on to do so (peer pressure) .
Really, this formula can be reproduced by anyone.

Many people over the years
have said to the Yes Men (and
many other activists) that they
have “balls of steel,” an impolite
way of saying that they are cou-
rageous. This is simply not so.

Watch any pre-conference
moment of The Yes Men Fix the
World and you will see a great
deal of nervousness. It has even
been said that Andy is a good
bit more nervous than the aver-
age bear. “He’s a real nervous
nellie,” says longtime friend-of-
Andy, Joseph R. Wolin. This is
even more remarkable because

PRINCIPLE: Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel

LIVE

WORLD BHOPAL LEGACY

Dow accepts full responsibility

Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men appears live from the BBC Paris studio on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster.
Posing as a representative of Dow, he announced his corporation would take full responsibility and compensate the
victims. This news story, and the later retraction, remained the top news story on Google that day.

TACTICS

Banner hang p. 12
Infiltration p. 64
Identity correction p. 60
Creative disruption p. 18

PRINCIPLES

Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 188

THEORIES

The social cure p. 264

The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Dow Chemical apologizes
for Bhopal p. 318
Bidder 70 p. 290

PRINCIPLE: Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel

137

gN PRINCIPLE :

®Mf protest is made illegal, make
daily life a protest

IN SUM

When standard dissent is made
impossible by overwhelming
state repression, find ways to
make ordinary acts subversive.

PRACTITIONERS

Orange Alternative
Dance Liberation Front
SNCC
Otpor!
ACT UP

FURTHER INSIGHT

T.V. Reed. The Art of Protest: Culture
and Activism from the Civil Rights
Movement to the Streets of Seattle.
University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Lester Kurtz. “Chile: Struggle Against
A Military Dictator" . 2009.

http://trb.ia/zdrpXO

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

In July 2011, public frustration in Belarus over a deepening
economic crisis reached a boiling point. The authoritarian
regime of President Alexander Lukashenko had outlawed any
political protest, and police were cracking down on any vocal
expression of dissent. In response, organizers calling them-
selves “Revolution Through Social Networks” began calling on
people to gather in public and clap their hands, or set their
cell phones to ring all at once, thereby turning these simple
everyday actions into profound public expressions of dissent.

As the non-protests spread, the police cracked down hard.
The regime rightly recognized that the clapping was serving
to undermine their authority. If they did nothing and contin-
ued to allow people to gather and clap without punishment,
then the population could openly oppose the regime in other
ways. Instead, the world saw the absurd sight of large num-
bers of Belarus citizens arrested for clapping. The crackdown
exposed the government’s deep irrationality, a perception
only strengthened when it submitted to Parliament a bill to
make “the organized inaction” of silent protesters illegal.

Many years earlier, in 1983, organized labor in Chile
planned to kick off new resistance to the ten-year-old Pino-
chet dictatorship with a massive strike in the copper mines,
the backbone of Chile’s economy. Before the strike could
occur, the mines were surrounded by the military and it
seemed a bloodbath was certain to follow if the miners went
through with this plan. Instead, the leadership brilliantly
switched gears to a National Day of Protest made of decen-
tralized actions, calling on those who supported them to
drive slowly, turn their lights on and off at night, and at 8 pm
to bang pots and pans. Many participated, and these mini-
protests helped to rebuild the confidence of the brutalized
opposition movement as people overcame their fear of acting.

As both of these actions dramatize, when mass gather-
ings and public protests become too dangerous, everyday
actions can be used to signal dissent, gather crowds, get
the word out, illustrate the ridiculous nature of repressive
authority, and set up decision dilemmas, all the while avoiding

138

PRINCIPLE: If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest

or deferring violent repression see PRINCIPLE: Put your target
in a decision dilemma.

This principle doesn’t only apply to repressive third-world
dictatorships, but to situations in supposedly more open
societies where daily life has been criminalized for certain
segments of the population. Think of the two queer women
who kissed in front of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City
until they were hurriedly pushed off the grounds by security.
Or the Dance Liberation Front, which organized dances in
the streets and unlicensed spaces of Giuliani’s New York to
flout repressive 1920s era “cabaret laws” still on the books.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: When it’s time to escalate, don’t miss the
boat. From the beginning, it is important to have a strategic
trajectory in mind for your campaign: focus on activities that
build toward bigger and bolder actions.

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Invisible theater p. 66

PRINCIPLES

Put your target in a
decision dilemma p. 1 66
Escalate strategically p. 134
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Anyone can act p. 98
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194

THEORIES

Hamoq & Hamas p. 236

Action logic p. 208

Points of intervention p. 250

Pillars of support p.248

Temporary Autonomous Zone [TAZ] p. 270

CASE STUDIES

Trail of Dreams p. 384
The salt march p. 354
Occupy Wall Street web

PRINCIPLE: If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest

139

/g\ PRINCIPLE :

wKill them with kindness

IN SUM

Kindness, smiles, gifts
and unicorns [well, maybe
not unicorns] can be potent
weapons in the struggle
against evil-doers.

EPIGRAPH

“Above all, be kind.”

-Kurt Vonnegut

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “Auctioneer: Stop All
the Sales Right Now!''

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=u3X89iViAlw

Occupy the Boardroom

http://www.occupytheboardroom.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

140

There’s a time to be angry see PRINCIPLE: Anger works best when
you have the moral high ground. There’s a time to be reverent see
PRINCIPLE: Use the power of ritual. There’s a time to be funny see
PRINCIPLE: Make it funny. And there’s also a time to be sweet,
charming and generous. In fact, that time is often.

A 2011 foreclosure auction in Brooklyn, U.S.A., for instance,
was movingly disrupted by protesters breaking into song. The
song wasn’t angry, it wasn’t agitated; it was sweet, beautiful,
compassionate — even toward the auctioneer. That’s what
made it so powerful: the protesters were grounded and deter-
mined. They kept singing their sweet song even as the cops led
them away.

When you lead with kind-
ness, you’re more likely to be seen
as the sympathetic character
in the story see PRINCIPLE: Lead
with sympathetic characters. You’ve
come in good faith. You’re try-
ing to make things better. You
come with smiles, gifts and an
open heart, and you are met
with stony-faced indifference,
scorn or abuse. In the eyes of
the public and the media, you are the good guys. You are the
reasonable ones. This is not only good tactics, it’s an assertion
of your basic humanity against unjust and inhuman structures.

Just think of the iconic ’60s moment: the anti-war protester
putting a flower in the soldier’s gun-barrel. Or more recently,
the “99%ers” from Occupy the Boardroom who set up online
“pen pal” relationships with the country’s top bankers. When
they were stopped by security from delivering their heartfelt
stories in person, they folded up their letters into paper air-
planes and sailed them over the heads of the cops toward the
bank HQ. For some, cars parked in bike lanes would be rea-
son enough to slash some tires, but not for the Bike Tane Lib-
eration Clowns, who instead will approach drivers and kindly
implore them to leave. Those who remain are given fake “this
could have been a real ticket” tickets warning them they’re in
violation of NYC parking rules.

“It’s a core element
of nonviolent
philosophy to
recognize the
humanity in
everyone and seek
to connect with it”

PRINCIPLE: Kill them with kindness

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Creative petition delivery p. 22
Artistic vigil p. 10
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Advanced leafletting p. 8

PRINCIPLES

Anger works best when you have

the moral highground p. 96

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

Make it funny web

Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Hope is a muscle web

Think narratively p. 186

Bogota, Colombia: A demonstrator embraces a riot police officer during a student protest against government plans to
reform higher education. When our opponents' aggression is met with kindness, aggressors and observers alike are
forced to look at their actions critically. Photo by William Fernando M artinez/AP.

THEORIES

Hamoq & Hamas p. 236

It’s naive to think that power will change its ways because of
a sweet appeal or a considerate gesture or a paper airplane. But
at the same time, it’s a core element of nonviolent philosophy to
recognize the humanity in everyone and seek to connect with
it. The more we humanize politics, the more likely we are to
win. The bureaucrat who secretly agrees with you is more like-
ly to quit, and lend his skills to the revolution. The cop who’s
been given cupcakes and coffee by a Granny Against the War is
that much closer to refusing an order to pepper spray a group
of college students linking arms. The foreclosure auctioneer,
touched by song, isn’t going to slam that gavel down quite so
hard the next time. And the public, witnessing all of these ac-
tions, is more likely to be moved to action themselves. All of
these things don’t interrupt the workings of power on their
own, but at a human level they matter, and over time they add
up, sowing seeds of beautiful trouble, and creating allies in the
most unexpected places.

CASE STUDIES

Occupy The Boardroom web
Small gifts p. 360
Teddy bear catapult p.380
Trail of Dreams p. 384
Daycare center sit-in p. 316
Billionaires for Bush p. 296

PRINCIPLE: Kill them with kindness

141

PRINCIPLE :

w Know your cultural terrain

(and use it to your advantage]

IN SUM

The first rule of guerrilla
warfare is to know your terrain
and use it to your advantage.

This holds true whether
you are fighting in an actual
jungle or in the metaphoric
wasteland of mass culture.

EPIGRAPH

“What the world’s governments
should really fear is an expert
in communication technologies.”

-Subcomandante Marcos

PRACTITIONERS

Center for Tactical Magic
Robbie Conal
El Teatro Campesino

FURTHER INSIGHT

Duncombe, Stephen. Cultural
Resistance Reader. London: Verso, 2002.

Duncombe, Stephen. Dream. New
York: The New Press, 2007.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Stephen Duncombe

142

Those of us engaged in creative activism need to be able
to navigate the broader cultural landscape in which we
wage our campaigns, and use it to our advantage. In the
twenty-first century, this terrain includes viral video sen-
sations, Twitter hashtags, guerrilla advertising, celebrity
gossip, sports spectacles, religious iconography, and other
cultural detritus.

But how is an activist supposed to survive, much less
thrive, in a cultural environment created expressly for the
purposes of commodifying everything of value or fostering
obedience to authority?

All cultural artifacts contain contradictions. Marketing
campaigns, for instance, are developed to exploit emotion in
order to sell product, but to do this they need to tap into the
deep-seated dreams and nightmares of large numbers of peo-
ple. Sometimes these desires are scary and reactionary (brush
with Pepsodent or you will die a spinster) , but they also tap into
positive, often Utopian dreams (drink this beer and you will be
surrounded by a beloved, albeit tipsy, community) .

Or consider religion: progressive activists often think of
religion as an institution designed to enforce the status quo.
There’s certainly much to condemn in religion, but it’s also a
system of ethics and a code of
behavior that can be used to All cultural

critique the norms and ide- mtltflin

als of consumer capitalism. UrUTULLS CUiilUfii

The world’s great religions ex- contradictions.”

tol such virtues as love, com-
munity and responsibility for others — surely good material
for an astute organizer to work with. Moses was a spectacu-
lar leader, Mohammed a master poet, and Jesus, chasing the
money-changers out of the Temple and spinning engaging
parables, was a crackerjack creative activist.

In 1906, the great philosopher, psychologist and pacifist
William James told a group of American students that if they
wanted to reach a wider public with their pacifist message,
they needed to understand that war, no matter how bloody

PRINCIPLE: Know your cultural terrain

Design: Andy Menconi.

and barbaric, also tapped into worthy sentiments like honor
and sacrifice, and that these values needed to first be recog-
nized and then redirected. Instead of rejecting war outright,
he concluded, the activists needed to articulate a “moral
equivalent of war” to take its place in the culture’s value sys-
tem. The trick, according to James’ insight, is to tap into
what’s potentially positive in the surrounding culture and
then redirect those dreams, desires, images and impulses

TACTICS

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Flash mob p. 46
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Trek p. 90

PRINCIPLES

Reframe p. 168

Brand or be branded p. 104

Use the power of ritual p. 198

Balance art and message p. 100

Consider your audience p. 118

Show, don't tell p.174

Think narratively p. 18 6

Bring the issue home p. 10 6

Make it funny web

Seek common ground p. 170

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244
Political identity paradox p. 254
Memes p. 242
The social cure p. 264
Hashtag politics p. 238
Cultural hegemony p. 222

CASE STUDIES

Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282

Yomango p.400

Harry Potter Alliance p. 322

Billionaires for Bush p. 296

The Big Donor Show p. 294

The Couple in the Cage p. 312

PRINCIPLE: Know your cultural terrain

143

into more progressive and creative social ends.

Today’s cultural terrain is multilayered and extremely
varied. Unlike the guerrilla in the jungle, who pretty much
only needs to know his own local terrain, we twenty-first
century cultural guerrillas need to range far and wide. You
may not like or be familiar with Nascar, professional sports,
reality TV and superheroes, but they are all fertile arenas of
culture to work with. It may take an open mind and a bit of
personal courage, but it behooves us to immerse ourselves
in, learn about and respect the world of the cultural “Other”
— which, for many of us counter-culture types, ironically, is
mass culture.

In 2003 activists from Katuah Earth First! in Knoxville, TN won popular support and massive media coverage for their
anti-war action by tapping into the popular narrative of the Lord of the Rings movies

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: The mass culture we seek to appropriate
and repurpose is often rooted in deeply regressive ideas and
ideologies. Use it carefully and creatively, or its original pur-
pose might prevail.

144

PRINCIPLE: Know your cultural terrain

OF ANYTHING IT IS LIKELY TO BE

my good behavior.

-Henry David Thoreau

XfiN PRINCIPLE :

w Lead with

IN SUM

Good actions tell a good story;
good stories revolve around
sympathetic characters.

PRACTITIONERS

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Cindy Sheehan
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAP D]

FURTHER INSIGHT

smartMeme, “Resources"
http://smartmeme.org/section.php?id=86

CONTRIBUTED BY

Doyle Canning
Patrick Reinsborough

146

sympathetic characters

Assembling a compelling cast of characters is a critical strategic
consideration for any action designer. Actions tend to be strong
on identifying and vilifying the antagonists of the narrative, but
an audience will care much more about injustice if they can
relate to the people who are being affected. Successful actions
are often those that present strong protagonists and other sym-
pathetic characters.

The role of the messenger who delivers the story of an
action is key. Messengers embody the message by putting a
human face on conflict and placing the action within a larger
context. Those most impacted by the issue tend to make for
more sympathetic and compelling messengers. For instance, if
the action is about farm workers, it can be more effective to
amplify the voices of a small group of farm workers who are
taking action than to have a larger group of non-farm work-
ers to speak up on their behalf. (Of course, solidarity actions
certainly have their place: see CASE: Taco Bell boycott.)

Power holders understand the importance of deploying
sympathetic characters. For instance, welfare cuts get present-
ed as benefiting working mothers, or corporate tax cuts sold
as job-creation tools to help the unemployed. Time and again,
the powerful play one group of sympathetic characters off an-
other, or argue with Orwellian duplicity that the victims of a
policy will actually benefit from it.

In these cases, a campaign becomes a contest over who gets
to speak for those suffering. With whom do we sympathize, and
are those characters actually given space to speak for them-
selves? A showdown results between messengers jockeying to
represent themselves as the authentic representatives of the
impacted constituencies.

In recent years, we have seen several uprisings against
repressive governments framed explicitly around sympathetic
characters. In Myanmar, monks became the new face of the
pro-democracy movement, replacing the students of the 1988
mobilizations as the primary messengers. Obviously, many
factions of society supported the movement, but with the monks
at the front of the marches it was clear that the pro-democracy
movement spoke for the conscience of the nation. Similarly, in
Pakistan lawyers became the face of the fight against govern-

PRINCIPLE: Lead with sympathetic characters

ment impunity. Who better to embody the message of a need
to respect the rule of law than lawyers?

It’s important to ensure that the faces of the action are not
just representative of the relevant impacted community, but
also are easily recognizable to outsiders as key characters in
the story. This can come down to the crude but important dy-
namics of costuming: a single religious leader wearing religious
sacraments will communicate that people of faith are involved
in the action better than twenty religious leaders wearingjeans
and sweatshirts see PRINCIPLE: Don’t dress like a protester.

Indigenous Ecuadorean leader Emergildo Criollo travels from Amazon rainforest to California to deliver 325,000+
letters urging Chevron CEO John Watson to clean up the oil giant's toxic legacy. Photo by Jonathan McIntosh / Rainfor-
est Action Network.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: The dynamics of who gets to speak, how
the characters are portrayed, and who is cast as the heroes,
victims, and villains, are deeply entwined in the dynamics of
power and privilege. Activists should take care not to play into
narratives of victimization that plague marginalized communi-
ties. Navigating these dynamics skillfully and authentically is
essential to successful actions and campaigns.

TACTICS

Artistic vigil p. 10
Identity correction p. 60
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Eviction blockade p. 44

PRINCIPLES

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 180

Think narratively p. 18 6

Stay on message p. 178

Don't dress like a protester p. 126

Put movies in the hands of

movements p. 164

Reframe p. 168

Bring the issue home p. 10 6

Consider your audience p. 118

Show, don't tell p. 174

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Make your actions both concrete

and communicative p. 154

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244

The propaganda model p. 2 56

Expressive and instrumental actions p. 232

The social cure p. 264

Floating signifier p. 234

The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Taco Bell boycott p. 372

Whose tea party? p. 392

Trail of Dreams p. 384

Modern Day Slavery Museum p. 338

Daycare center sit-in p. 316

PRINCIPLE: Lead with sympathetic characters

aintain nonviolent discipline

IN SUM

Nonviolent action works best
when you stay nonviolent.

EPIGRAPH

“We must forever conduct our
struggle on the high plane of
dignity and discipline. We must
not allow our creative
protests to degenerate into
physical violence. Again and
again we must rise to the
majestic heights of meeting
physical force with soul force.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

PRACTITIONERS

Jesus of Nazareth
Gandhi

Civil Rights Movement
Otpor
Greenpeace
Peaceful Uprising
Gene Sharpe
The Ya Basta Association

FURTHER INSIGHT

Erica Chenoweth and Maria
Stephan, Why Civil Resistance
Works (Columbia UP, 2011],

Hardy Merriman, “The Trifecta of Civil
Resistance: Unity, Planning, Discipline."

http://trb.la/A0H8NI

It’s amazing to think that unarmed masses of people have
defeated armed-to-the-teeth forces using humble techniques
as strikes, occupations, boycotts and sit-ins. One way of un-
derstanding why this can happen is that nonviolent methods
put the oppressor in a decision dilemma: either rain pain on
a bunch of unarmed resisters, or capitulate. The former can
turn public opinion toward the protesters and undermine the
legitimacy upon which the oppressor’s power rests. If the resis-
tance persists, escalating crackdowns can start to backfire, even
to the point that the police or military refuse to participate.
Eventually the sovereign has no choice but to capitulate.

By maintaining nonviolent discipline in the face of police dogs, this civil rights demonstrator in Birmingham, Alabama,
put his oppressor in a decision dilemma, May 3, 1963.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nathan Schneider

This basic logic frays, however, as soon as the resisters start
meeting violence with violence. If the opponent succeeds in
portraying resisters as a threat to peace and order, it escapes
the decision dilemma, reasserting its legitimacy by playing
the part of protector, of securer, of stabilizer. Unless you can
scrounge up enough guns to match the military’s firepower,
your movement is toast.

PRINCIPLE: Maintain nonviolent discipline

Political scientist Erica Chenoweth and sociologist Kurt
Schock examined the data of past resistance movements and

found that having an armed flank dramatically reduces the
ability of an uprising to attract widespread participation. Most
people aren’t interested in get-
ting martyred in a hrehght, so
they’ll stay home. Rather than
merely representing one wing
of a “diversity of tactics,” there-
fore, undisciplined violence in
a movement tends to lessen the
effectiveness of nonviolent mass
movements see: TACTIC: Strategic
nonviolence. That’s why oppres-
sors love to insert provocateurs
into resistance movements to
push them into violence and
then discredit them.

Many people keep nonviolent discipline for mainly strategic
reasons: they do it because it’s effective, rather than as a mat-
ter of principle. In practice, though, maintaining nonviolent
discipline in the face of provocation can be difficult if you don’t
consider it at least partly as an end in itself. Fortunately, almost
everybody aspires to build the least violent society possible. To
the extent that we build our movements as models of the world
we’d like to see, nonviolent discipline should come naturally.

The practice of maintaining nonviolent discipline should
never be confused with passivity or acquiescence in the face
of injustice.

Nonviolent
methods put the
oppressor in a
decision dilemma:
either rain down
pain on a bunch of
unarmed resisters ,
or capitulate."

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: When a given nonviolent tactic doesn’t
work, it’s tempting to conclude that nonviolence has failed and
the only recourse is violence. That’s incredibly hasty. There
is an enormous range of nonviolent tactics — Gene Sharp
famously listed 198 of them, 1 and that’s just for starters — vary-
ing from purely symbolic acts to direct action designed to dis-
rupt the smooth operation of oppressive systems. There is no
one-tactic-hts-all solution: when one nonviolent tactic isn’t do-
ing the trick, try another, or more than one at once!

TACTICS

Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Blockade p. 14
Mass Street Action p. 68
Occupation p. 78

Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
General Strike p. 50
Trek p. 90

Eviction blockade p. 44

PRINCIPLES

Put your target in a decision
dilemma p. 16 6
Escalate strategically p. 134
If protest is made illegal, make
daily life a protest p. 138
Take risks, but take care p. 182
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154
Kill them with kindness p. 140

THEORIES

Pillars of support p. 238
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Points of intervention p. 250
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

CASE STUDIES

The salt march p. 354
Battle in Seattle p. 286
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396
Occupy Wall Street web
Justice for Janitors p. 326
Reclaim the Streets p. 350
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel
Clown Army p. 304
Tar sands action p. 376

1 Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vols 1-3 (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973], http://aeinstein.
org/organizations/org/198 methods.pdf

PRINCIPLE: Maintain nonviolent discipline

ake new folks welcome

IN SUM

Recruitment and retention go
hand in hand. A few simple
procedures for orienting
new participants can go a
long way to ensuring their
ongoing involvement.

EPIGRAPH

“You are invited. By anyone, to
do anything. You are invited,
for all time. You are so needed,
by everyone, to do everything.
You are invited, for all time.”

-The Dismemberment Plan,
You Are Invited

PRACTITIONERS

Iraq Veterans Against the War

FURTHER INSIGHT

Jonathan Matthew Smucker, “Three
Tips for Plugging People In," Beyond
the Choir, February 28, 2011

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

Bringing in new participants is essential to any activist group
that wants to grow in size and capacity — but recruiting is
only the first step. Integrating people into an established
group can be a much bigger challenge, and it helps to be in-
tentional about it. Getting good at involving people requires
some deliberate attention and probably the establishment of
some basic procedures to make new folks welcome.

For starters, when someone says they’re interested in hnd-
ing out more or getting involved in your group, don’t just
invite them to come to your next meeting and leave it at that.
Even the most welcoming and inclusive groups tend to devel-
op their own meeting culture
that can unintentionally make
new folks feel like outsiders.

To increase your new member
retention rates, schedule one-
on-one intake interviews with
new folks before they come to
a group meeting. Get to know
the person. Find out what
attracted them to the group,
what kinds of tasks they enjoy
or are good at, and how much
time they have. Then tell them
more about the group and dis-
cuss what their involvement
could look like. While this level of orientation requires more
time up front, it saves time in the long run: people tend to
plug into the work faster and stick around longer. It may make
sense for one or two members of your group to take on this
responsibility as an ongoing role.

Secondly, if you want to inspire people to stay involved,
you need to make them feel valued and appreciated. People
like to be around people who treat them well. Most of us have
no shortage of things we can do with a finite amount of free
time: if you expect people to prioritize your group over ai-
kido classes, contra dancing or advanced origami, you gotta
treat ‘em right. Notice and acknowledge new folks’ contribu-
tions, however small. Make time to check in with them outside

“Even the most
welcoming and
inclusive groups
tend to develop
their own meeting
culture that can
unintentionally
make new folks
feel like outsiders ”

PRINCIPLE: Make new folks welcome

SIG-KJ THE

■Declaration of Interdependence

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PRINCIPLES

Don't mistake your group for society p. 130

Enable, don't command p. 132

We are all leaders p. 202

Challenge patriarchy as

you organize p. 108

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

THEORIES

Political identity paradox p. 254
Anti-oppression p. 212

CASE STUDIES

Lysistrata project p. 330

Even a toddler can hold a petition on the back of a truck. Get people involved at their level. (Protesting the nuclear
arms race in San Francisco, California in 1960. Photo by Pip R. Lagenta/Flickr .)

of meetings. Ask their opinions often: What did they think
about the meeting? the event? the action? Bounce your ideas
off of them and ask for their feedback.

PRINCIPLE: Make new folks welcome

/gs PRINCIPLE :

wMake the invisible visible

IN SUM

Many injustices are invisible
to the mainstream. When
you bring these wrongs
into full view, you change
the game, making the need
to take action palpable.

EPIGRAPH

“We who in engage in nonviolent
direct action are not the
creators of tension. We merely
bring to the surface the hidden
tension that is already alive.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace
ACT-UP & Gran Fury
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Guerrilla Girls
Eve Ensler
United Farm Workers
SNCC

Rainforest Action Network
Coco Fusco
Lesbian Avengers
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Operation SalAMI
Preemptive Media

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

Social problems are often obscured by distance, ideology, or
simple chemistry (when was the last time you noticed PCBs in
your drinking water?). If you can’t see it, you can’t change it:
the first task of an activist is often to make the invisible visible.

There are several kinds of “invisibility.” Which one you’re
dealing with will shape the approach you take.

Distance

Climate chaos might be stranding polar bears in the Arc-
tic or submerging small island nations in the Pacific, but
for most people in the global north it’s out of sight, out
of mind. Countless artful interventions have sought to
make accelerating climate changes more visible, whether
by painting anticipated future sea levels on city streets and
buildings or mock-drowning a polar bear in the fountain
outside the Department of the Interior in D.C., as Green-
peace did in 2009.

People with privilege often have the luxury of putting
distance between themselves and the consequences of
their actions. When tackling an issue that seems distant,
it helps to bring the issue home see PRINCIPLE: Bring the
issue home by highlighting the human cost.

Ideology

People who have the luxury of not seeing an uncomfort-
able truth often simply won’t, even if it’s in front of their
faces. Privileged whites easily ignored the everyday injus-
tices inflicted during the Jim Crow era until blacks orga-
nized and took action, sitting in the “wrong” seats in din-
ers and on buses, marching in the streets, and so on.

Injustices made invisible by ideology can be brought
to light by judicious reframing see PRINCIPLE: Reframe. A
frame defines what is part of the story and, more impor-
tantly, what is not. Actions that target the point of assump-
tion (the simple question of who can sit where on a bus,
for instance) can focus attention on what was previously
“outside the frame.”

152

PRINCIPLE: Make the invisible visible

Chemistry, and other easily overlooked facts of life

Many pollutants cannot be seen by the naked eye, yet cause
great harm. The key is to bring that harm into public view.
Consider the makers of the movie Gasland, who lit some
Pennsylvania tap water on fire, powerfully refuting years
of industry denial with a single powerful visual demonstra-
tion. Or the forest activists who filled several city intersec-
tions with the stumps of cut-down trees. When Kodak was
caught discharging toxins from its manufacturing plant in
upstate New York, Greenpeace created a public fountain
that brought the effluent from the pipe — normally out of
site below the water surface — cascading into public view.
These kind of actions are particularly effective when the
corporation has worked hard to hide or deny the damage,
or simply done it far away from consumers.

A still from the movie “Gasland" by documentary filmmaker Josh Fox exposes the effects of fracking.

The role of the activist often resembles that of the child in
the Hans Christian Andersen story: even if everyone knows
the emperor has no clothes, saying as much in public can have
revolutionary consequences. Exposing previously hidden
problems can be the first and most important step in resolv-
ing them.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: Amnesty International,

“Making the invisible visible''

http://trb.la/xJNGDV

New Tactics in Human Rights. Resources
and Tools/Building Awareness

http://trb.la/z2HFML

Hudson River Sloop Clearwater

http://www.clearwater.org/about/history/

Slavoj Zizek, “Good Manners in the
Age of Wikileaks,” London Review
of Books January 20, 2011.

Greenpeace, “Giant Melting da Vinci
Artwork Recreated on Arctic Sea Ice "

http://trb.la/wRJEgi

TACTICS

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Identity correction p. 60
Invisible theater p. 66
Banner hang p. 12
Guerrilla projections p. 52
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Show, don't tell p. 174
Bring the issue home p. 10 6
Turn the tables p. 190
Reframe p. 168

Do the media’s work for them p. 124
Know your cultural terrain p. 142

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
Environmental justice p. 228
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Alienation effect p. 210

CASE STUDIES

Modern-Day Slavery Museum p. 338

Mining the museum p. 334

Streets into gardens p. 368

Trail of Dreams p. 384

The couple in the cage p. 312

Stolen Beauty boycott campaign p. 364

The salt march p. 354

Operation First Casualty web

Whose tea party? p. 392

PRINCIPLE: Make the invisible visible

XfiX PRINCIPLE :

w Make your actions both concrete
and communicative

(but don’t confuse the two)

IN SUM

Concrete tactics have
measurable goals
and are designed to have
a direct physical impact.
Communicative ones can be
more symbolic. Knowing
the difference and planning
accordingly is important.

PRACTITIONERS

The Diggers [1960s]
The Va Basta Association
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Greenpeace
Art and Revolution Collective

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

To varying degrees, all tactics might be concrete and commu-
nicative. When activists confuse the two, the results can be
counter-productive.

A tactic is concrete to the degree that it seeks to achieve a
specific, quantifiable objective. For example, anti-war orga-
nizers may seek to blockade a port to keep a shipment of weap-
ons from passing through. There is a specific goal, a tangible
cost for the port and the companies that use it, and a way
to evaluate success: either we stop the weapons or we don’t.

A tactic is communicative insomuch as it communicates a
political position, set of values or worldview. A mass march
in response to an injustice can fall into this category. Commu-
nicative tactics can be useful for exciting our base, building
networks, seeking to sway public opinion, or scaring a target,
but often do not have a specific, measurable, activating, realistic,
time-bound (S.M.A.R.T.) goal. Success is more qualitative.

To succeed, concrete tactics must force a response from
the target see PRINCIPLE: Put your target in a decision dilemma.
Communicative tactics might have a target, but can also work
without one.

While some actions can be both communicative and con-
crete, it is important to understand the difference. People of-
ten get discouraged by direct action because they take part in
a communicative action and expect a concrete outcome. It’s
better to be clear from the beginning about the difference,
so that everyone knows how to measure, and contribute to,
the action’s impact.'

Consider an Occupy Wall Street effort to blockade the
entrance to Goldman Sachs. At the action planning meet-
ing, because there was no clarity about whether the action
was communicative or concrete, at first the discussion was
circular and unproductive. Some wanted people to lock
arms in a simple human blockade see TACTIC: Blockade, oth-
ers wanted to up the ante by using chains and other “hard
gear.” Using gear has the benefit of staying power (it’s more

154

PRINCIPLE: Make your actions both concrete and communicative

difficult for the police to re-
move you), but it carries much
greater risk and is more diffi-
cult to deploy. It became clear
the group had neither time
nor numbers to blockade every
single exit. Therefore, if the ac-
tion was conceived as concrete
(trying to shut down Goldman
Sachs), it would fail because
it could not achieve a realistic
instrumental outcome. If it was
communicative, however — a
symbolic act to amplify a message — it could be successful.
Furthermore, a communicative action might have a power-
ful expressive outcome by building the resolve, connection
and commitment of participants by offering them a cathar-
tic, transformative experience. When participants agreed to
carry out a communicative action, the staying power of the
blockade gear was no longer needed: there was no tactical
advantage to holding the space longer. Instead, the group
decided to go with a human blockade, which played better
in the media (a main indicator of success for them in this ac-
tion). If activists hadn’t assessed the purpose of their action
and understood their goals, they likely would have made less
strategic choices.

people onen
get discouraged
by direct action
because they
take part in a
communicative
action and expect a
concrete outcome ”

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14
Occupation web
Sit-in web

PRINCIPLES

Put your target in a decision
dilemma p. 1 66
Praxis makes perfect p. 162
Escalate strategically p. 134
Consider your audience p. 118
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

THEORIES

Expressive and instrumental

actions p. 232

Points of intervention p. 250

Action logic p. 208

Activist realpolitik web

Narrative power analysis p. 244

Ethical spectacle p. 230

CASE STUDIES

Bottle in Seattle p. 286

Whose tea party? p. 392

Taco Bell boycott p. 372

Tar sands action p. 376

Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396

1 The categories “concrete" and “communicative" are ways to measure the instrumental outcome of
an action, as opposed to its expressive dimension. The expressive part of your action is focused
on the self-expression of participants, while the instrumental outcome of an action is concerned
with your action’s more direct impacts ( see THEORY: Expressive and instrumental actions].

PRINCIPLE: Make your actions both concrete and communicative

/p\ principle =

w No one wants to watch a drum circle

IN SUM

Participating in a drum circle
is amazing, transformative and
fun. Watching a drum circle,
on the other hand, is torture.
Don’t ask people to watch you
have fun: get them involved!

FURTHER INSIGHT

Weapons Lab Conversion Proposal

http://trb. la/zUOYwt

Video: “Say Something Nice."
ImprovEverywhere. August 22, 2011

http://youtu.be/RwEYYI-AGWs

PRACTITIONERS

Improv Everywhere
Otpor!
The [new] Diggers
“I Dream Your Dream”

CONTRIBUTED BY

Steve Lambert

156

Drum circles are incredible! Hanging out in the park with a
mix of friends and strangers, making rhythms together, com-
municating intuitively, adding your own rhythm, and making a
big and beautiful sound that tills the park. It’s an amazing thing.

Or so I’ve heard.

My actual experiences with drum circles are entirely
different. At best, they’re tolerable, but more often they’re
torture. I’m trying to hang out in the park with my friends
and these self-indulgent dipshits won’t stop banging on their
goat skins. No one else cares except someone in a tie-dyed
sarong who will apparently jump at any opportunity to sway
with her arms in the air.

Being part of a drum circle is one thing. Experiencing it
from the outside, quite another.

Way too often, activism is like a drum circle. Viewed from
the outside, it can be painfully unimaginative, solipsistic
and quite simply annoying. For the people involved in the
creation of an action, however, the experience can be reward-
ing and transformative — even if everyone else walks away
confused or annoyed. If that happens and it doesn’t bother
you, you may have fallen prey to the political identity paradox
see THEORY.

One way to reach your audience is to entice them to
become participants by expanding the creative part of the
action to include as many as possible. Come up with ways
for observers to meaningfully involve themselves, instead of
expecting them to stand mute before your expressive out-
bursts of creativity.

Instead of strictly planning an action, think of creating
rules to a game — one that is rewarding and fun to play see
PRINCIPLE: Simple rules can have grand results. How can you
create parameters within which large numbers of partici-
pants can meaningfully contribute, act, and create? An open
framework that allows participants the freedom to bring in
their own ideas and solutions?

The call to occupy Wall Street operated in this way, of-
fering only a date, a core slogan, and the instruction Bring
tent. Flash mobs are no different: set a time, location, and
a few basic rules, and let things take their course. These

PRINCIPLE: No one wants to watch a drum circle

actions have simple rules that can expand to include thousands
of participants and still deliver a provocative experience to
participant and observer alike.

In any case, whatever the nature of your action, it’s worth
looking for ways to make passersby feel that it’s more about
them than about you. No matter how good a drummer you are.

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Carnival protest web
Street theater web
Forum theater p. 48

While those inside this drum circle seem to be reaching new levels of existential bliss, those watching aren’t likely to
get much out of the event. We should strive to make our actions transparent and inclusive.

PRINCIPLES

Consider your audience p. 118

Make new folks welcome p. 150

Make your actions both concrete

and communicative p. 154

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176

Make it funny web

THEORIES

Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

Political identity paradox p. 254
The social cure p. 264
Action logic p. 208

CASE STUDIES

Daycare center sit-in p. 316
Billionaires for Bush p. 296
Reclaim the Streets p. 350

' Of course, Occupy Wall Street went on to attract its share of drum circles: http://yeslab.org/drumcircle

PRINCIPLE: No one wants to watch a drum circle

XfiX PRINCIPLE :

w Pace yourself

IN SUM

Taking care of ourselves and
having fun in our work for
social change are essential
to building stronger, larger,
more effective movements.

EPIGRAPH

“Let’s treat each other as
if we plan to work side by side
in struggle for many, many
years to come. Because
the task before us
will demand nothing less.”

-Naomi Klein, address to
Occupy Wall Street

FURTHER INSIGHT

Weber, Cheyenna. “A Love Letter
to the Overcommitted."
Shareable.net. November 23, 2011.

Macy, Joanna, and Molly Young Brown.
Coming Back to Life. Gabriola Island,
BC: New Society Publishers, 1998.

Albert, Michael. The Trajectory of
Change: Activist Strategies for Social
Transformation.
Boston: South End Press, 2002.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Tracey Mitchell

158

Too often, the people doing the most to take care of the world
do the least to take care of themselves. It happens far too fre-
quently that a dedicated activist suddenly (or not so suddenly,
for those who know them best) burns out and disappears from
public view. This scenario is common enough, and represents
a large enough threat to our collective success, that it warrants
serious discussion and soul-searching within our movements.
Specifically, we need to talk about how to take care of ourselves
and each other so we can stay involved for the long haul.

Whether we like it or not, activists are walking advertise-
ments for our movements. If we are exhausted, frustrated,
overwhelmed or unhappy most of the time, we make a life of
activism look extremely unattractive to the average person. Vir-
tually every activist has struggled with the question of how to
get beyond “preaching to the choir.” A first step is to make “the
choir” the sort of place lots of people will want to join.

It is also important to ensure that pragmatic self-care is not
seen as selfish or bourgeois. If we don’t take time to focus on
our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual selves, we will
burn out sooner or later. It’s almost guaranteed. Wouldn’t it be
better to take regular breaks to nurture yourself, rather than
get to the point where you have to take months or years off be-
cause you are too sick or depressed to be involved?

Activists are frequently motivated by guilt, and will uncon-
sciously use guilt to motivate others. Guilt is a dangerous moti-
vator because it will never be satisfied, and is rooted in a sense
of external obligation rather than internal passion. A better
motivator, for those who have some degree of privilege and feel
guilty about that, is gratitude. Coming to this work from grati-
tude gives us energy without sucking us into despair and self-
judgment.

These are deadly serious questions. Long-time Canadian
activist Tooker Gomberg took his own life in 2004 after a long
battle with depression and burn-out. Before he died, he wrote
a letter to social change activists. Do the activism, he said, but
don’t overdo it:

It’s honorable to work to change the world, but do it

in balance with other things. Explore and embrace the

PRINCIPLE: Pace yourself

things you love to do, and you’ll be energetic and en-
thusiastic about the activism. Don’t drop hobbies or en-
joyments. Be sure to hike and dance and sing. Keeping
your spirit alive and healthy is fundamental if you are to
keep going . 1

“It’s better to sit
out a game or two
than to drop the
ball mid-game.”

It is important to take a long
view of activism, to remember
those who came before us and
those who will come after. This
can help us build on the work
of previous generations and learn from their mistakes and
triumphs, so that we are not always starting from scratch. We
cannot carry all of the weight of the world’s problems on our
shoulders; we must simply accept, with gratitude, the opportu-
nity to do what we can today.

PRINCIPLES

Make new folks welcome p. 150
Delegate p. 122
Beware the tyranny of
structurelessness p. 102
Create levels of participation web
Take risks but take care p. 182
Make it funny web

THEORIES

The social cure p. 264
Hamoq & hamas p. 236

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Don’t be a flake. Often, when people sud-
denly realize that they need to take better care of themselves
or need a break, they flake out on existing commitments and
leave comrades in the lurch. Learning to anticipate breaks,
plan for them and not overcommit is a really important part of
pacing. It’s better to sit out a game or two than to drop the ball
mid-game.

1 looker Go mberg, “Letter to an Activist, Earth Day 2002 " (Greenspiration.org)

PRINCIPLE: Pace yourself

159

PRINCIPLE :

w Play to the audience that isn't there

IN SUM

In a hyper-mediated world,
often the audience you care
about is not the one in the
room with you, but the one
you’ll reach through mass
and social media. Design your
action with them in mind.

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men
Agit-Pop
CANVAS
Greenpeace
Joey Skaggs

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum
Andrew Boyd

160

When you’re pulling off a prank or staging some kind of media
spectacle, it’s important to keep in mind that those you’re di-
rectly confronting are often not your main audience. When Oc-
cupy Wall Street activists swarm Manhattan’s financial district
or Bhopal activists camp out on the lawn of the CEO of Union
Carbide, there’s no reason to think that the immediate audience
will change their minds based on what they’re observing. Rath-
er, the idea is to use the immediate audience as unwitting ac-
tors in a theater piece that is being performed for a secondary
audience. That secondary audience is comprised of hlmgoers or
Youtube viewers or TV watchers or press-release readers — and
they’re the ones you care most about. Design your intervention
with them in mind.

If reporters are going to be present, consider how things
will look through their eyes. Regardless, however, make sure to
document your own action see PRINCIPLE: Do the media’s work
for them. Choreograph the action so you create and capture

PRINCIPLE: Play to the audience that isn’t there

“Think of your
immediate audience
as unwitting actors
in the theater piece
you’re concocting
for another
audience they’re
not even aware of.’’

the moments you need to tell
the story you want to tell. When
Agit-Pop pulled off their Public
Option Annie guerrilla musical
see CASE, they snuck more vid-
eographers into the conference
than singers.

Obviously, the secondary au-
dience is not always your focus.

At a rally, say, the key audience
might actually be the partici-
pants themselves. With most
strikes or sit-ins, the key audi-
ence is the actual target — a CEO or public official — and your
aim is to disrupt business as usual and exact a cost that will
pressure your target to accede to your demands.

But even with some of these more disruptive actions, the
key audience is not in the room. When Tim DeChristopher dis-
rupted a Utah oil and gas auction in 2008 see CASE: Bidder 70,
he was not tempted to address the other bidders directly. His
action was for a much larger audience — as well as for the land
itself that he helped to save.

Sometimes activists think they’re out to change the minds
of the bankers, CEOs, or others they’re ostensibly targeting.
It’s one thing to pretend you’re out to change their minds — in
order to stage a theatrically effective action, that is often neces-
sary — but it’s another thing to believe it yourself. The idea that
you can change evildoers’ minds by gathering en masse outside
their stronghold is not exactly supported by the historical
record. Instead, think of your target and your immediate audi-
ence as unwitting actors in the theater piece you’re concocting
for another audience they’re not even aware of.

TACTICS

Hoax p. 54

Identity correction p. 60
Infiltration p. 64
Public filibuster p. 86
Creative disruption p. 18
Human banner p. 56
Electoral guerrilla theater p. 40
Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Media-jacking p. 72
Creative petition delivery p. 22

PRINCIPLES

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Stay on message p. 178

Show, don't tell p. 174

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Anger works best when you have

the moral high ground p. 96

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 1 66

Don't look like a protester p. 126

Kill them with kindness p. 140

THEORIES

Society of the spectacle p. 266
Ethical spectacle p. 230
The propaganda model p. 2 56

CASE STUDIES

Public Option Annie p. 346
Bidder 70 p. 290

HOW THE OPPOSITE IS EQUALLY TRUE: Sometimes this principle is
absolutely wrong. Sometimes the media and the public will see
right through an action that is too heavy-handedly crafted for
TV. Sometimes the best way to connect with the indirect audi-
ence is just to be your unvarnished, authentic self, warts and all
see CASE: Occupy Wall Street.

PRINCIPLE: Play to the audience that isn’t there

raxis makes perfect

IN SUM

Theory without action produces
armchair revolutionaries.
Action without reflection

produces ineffective or
counter-productive activism.
That’s why we have praxis:
a cycle of theory, action
and reflection that helps us
analyze our efforts in order
to improve our ideas.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Moore, Hillary, and Joshua Kahn Russell.

Organizing Cools the Planet: Tools and
Reflections to Navigate the Climate
Crisis. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2011.

Praxis Makes Perfect: Joshua
Kahn Russell's blog

www.praxismakesperfect.org

Beyond the Choir: A forum for
grassroots mobilization

www.beyondthechoir.org

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

“Praxis requires us
to be students of
our own experience
and context.”

Effective activism follows a cycle. We start with our theory of
how change happens. Then we take action based on our theo-
ry. Then we take a step back and reflect on how the action went,
which re-shapes our theory. Basically, praxis means “learning.”
It may seem simple, but few activists actually do it.

Praxis requires us to be students of our own experience
and context. It’s not just about being smart and reflecting.
It’s also about building spe-
cific behaviors and group norms
that promote habits of strategy,
debrief and revision. It’s
about your group’s meeting
style, organizational structure
and leadership dynamics.

Here’s the difference that praxis can make:

Let’s say we’re in a student group at a college. If our group
lacks praxis, we may say: “Let’s bring Radical Thinker X to
speak at our campus!” We affirm that the event will be “good.”
Then we have the event. It’s somewhat well-attended, but after-
wards our group has mixed feelings about it. We decide to keep
moving forward and host another event.

That’s a bit directionless. There was no actual theory, and
no basis for reflection.

Instead, let’s start with a theory. We start our group meeting
by saying “Bringing Radical Thinker X to campus will help our
campaign. They can talk about why activism is powerful, and
it will reach a new audience of people who are not yet engaged
in our campaign. Let’s post fliers in our favorite coffee shops.
Three hundred people will attend, fifty will sign up, and five of
those people will show up at our next meeting.”

Now that’s a real theory. It has an explicit logic, a process of
how you will do your action, and concrete measurable outcomes
that you expect.

The event happens. Only one hundred people attend and
most of them already work with your group, so only a few sign
your list, and nobody new comes to your next meeting.

You now have a real basis for reflection. You can debrief your
event, and instead of subjectively talking about whether you
thought it was “good” or not, you can have a conversation about

PRINCIPLE: Praxis makes perfect

PRINCIPLES

Pick battles big enough to matter,

small enough to win web

Escalate strategically p. 134

Challenge patriarchy as

you organize p. 108

When the people are with you, act web

Beware the tyranny of

structurelessness p. 102

We are all leaders p. 202

THEORIES

The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Pillars of support p.248
Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246

The Praxis Wheel. Art by Joshua Kahn Russell.

why it didn’t measure up to your success indicators, and what to
do next time. These lessons shape how you do your next event.

Organizers should have the praxis cycle spinning in their
heads all the time. We are always learning from what’s going
on around us. The point of building a culture of praxis in your
group, however, is so your whole group can learn, not just a cou-
ple of organizers. When you develop your theory (your plan
and your goals) with your group, and then have a real debrief
after, the lessons are available to all. If you don’t take real time
out to name your theories, and then reflect, revise, and learn
lessons, you will be left spinning your wheels, with fewer and
fewer people understanding how to do the work of your group.

PRINCIPLE: Praxis makes perfect

XfiX PRINCIPLE :

w Put movies in the hands of movements

IN SUM

By telling a personal story,
documentary film can make an
otherwise difficult-to-approach
issue accessible. Filmmakers
and activists, working together,
can collaborate to make a film a
story-driven lever for change.

EPIGRAPH

“Making the movie and getting
it to screen is only 50% of the
job. What to do when the lights
come up - how to harness
that energy in the room...
well that’s the other 50%.”

-George Stoney

PRACTITIONERS

Working Films
http://www.workingfilms.org
Active Voice
www.activevoice.net
Film Sprout
www.filmsprout.org
Films That Change the World
www.filmsthatchangetheworld.com
Hybrid Foundation/Practitioner
www.thefledglingfund.org
GOOD PITCH Channel 4
Brit-Docs Foundation's
http://britdoc.org/real_good/pitch

CONTRIBUTED BY

Judith Helfand
Anna Lee

164

Story-driven documentaries change minds, attitudes and poli-
cies. But they reach their fullest potential when tightly woven
into the campaigns and events of organizers working on the
issues. As activist filmmakers, here are a couple of key rules my
colleagues and I have learned:

Create mutually beneficial rela-
tionships between filmmakers and

organizers. Authentic partner-
ships start with the filmmaker
asking the movement, “What
can my him do for you?” Not,

“what can you do for my him?”

Certainly, the movement has much to offer the hlmmaker in
return (and we’ll get to that) but it’s important to begin with
this frame.

Look for hve to ten organizations to partner with — some
might be small and scrappy, others may have national reach.
Ask them for the strategy; don’t guess. Effective conversations
start with questions like: “What are your current programs and
priorities and how could our him support them?” “What do
you want audiences to do when the lights come up?” Partner
organizations have resources to offer in return: online tools
that can be embedded into a hlm’s website, information that
can be added to a hlm’s screening guide or curriculum, con-
stituents and allies eager to spread the word, and actions that
audience members can take. All of this creates a cycle which
builds momentum for both the him and the movement.

Move from “film timeline ” to “organizing timeline.” The hrst year
or so of a hlm’s life is driven by the him timeline: you take it
around the festival circuit, bring it to theaters or community
events and, if you’re lucky, broadcast it. This is a great time to
experiment together. For example, you might try out a mobile
app where you ask festival audiences to sign a petition while
they are still in their seats.

But at a certain point, a hlmmaker shifts to “organizing
time” — especially when there is a timely, urgent ongoing
campaign that needs the him. Community screenings, house

"We create a cycle
by which we build
momentum for
both the film and
the movement”

PRINCIPLE: Put movies in the hands of movements

parties, online streaming: all these traditional venues for dis-
tribution can be utilized strategically by organizations and
individual activists on the ground. They might use screening
events to get more folks to sign up for an upcoming national
day of action and then use clips to energize the crowd on the
day of the action. Or they might use house party screenings and
discussions to mobilize their constituents around a pending piece
of legislation that needs that extra push. At this stage, a cam-
paign’s needs and timeline inform when and how the him is used
and catalyze the long-term change everyone is working toward.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: The most important part of being an
“independent” storyteller isjust that: your independence. While
you have to balance the needs of your organizing partners with
the needs of your narrative, the story has to come first. You
might be making a him with Greenpeace, but you are not mak-
ing it for them. It’s critical that this relationship is understood
by all parties — the organizers, the press, as well as opponents
who, given half the chance, will cry, “Propaganda!” The key to
this synergy is not just the perception of independence, but its
reality.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Working Films, “Impact: A Series of
Stories about Films Making Change”

www.workingfilms.org/impact

Video: “Everything's Cool at
Sundance: Leveraging a Film Fest"

Part 1: http://youtu.be/zJfjv7t6Z2Q
Part 2: http://youtu.be/CVvAGAPY6ik

Video: “Everything's Cool: Step It Up"

http://youtu.be/kx_Pu9-TLn4

Independent Documentary
Association, “DOC ‘U’on the ROAD"

http://trb.la/ycoowO

TACTICS

Guerrilla projection p. 52

PRINCIPLES

Think narratively p. 186
Stay on message p. 178
Balance art and message p. 100
Think nationally, screen locally web
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Show, don't tell p. 174

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244
Points of intervention p. 250
Pedagogy of the oppressed p. 246
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Intellectuals and power p. 240

PRINCIPLE: Put movies in the hands of movements

PRINCIPLE :

w Put your target in a decision dilemma

IN SUM

Design your action so that
your target is forced to make a
decision, and all their available
options play to your advantage.

PRACTITIONERS

Cindy Sheehan
United for a Fair Economy
Saul Aiinsky
Otpor

The ProvosFURTHER INSIGHT

Philippe Duhamel, “The Dilemma
Demonstration: Using nonviolent civil
disobedience to put the government
between a rock and a hard place " (2004).

http://trb.la/Aq6iwp

Srdja Popovic, “On Otpor's strategy."
Centre for Applied Nonviolent
Action and Strategies.

http://trb.la/A1kUAr

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd
Joshua Kahn Russell

166

If you design your action well,
you can force your target into
a situation where they have to
respond, but have no good op-
tions — where they’re damned
if they do, damned if they don’t.
In fact, many actions with con-
crete goals (such as blockades,
sit-ins, tree-sits, etc) require such
a “decision dilemma” in order
to be successful.

Consider the blockade of a
building. A tactically effective
blockade leaves your target with
only two options: 1) negotiate
with you / meet your demands,
or 2) react with force (violence
against you or arrest). That’s a decision dilemma. Don’t let your
target walk out the back door, and don’t put yourself in a situa-
tion where they can wait you out with impunity. You must force
a clear decision dilemma. Without it, you let your target and/
or the police determine the success of your action, rather than
calling the shots yourself. Be sure to cover all the exits — liter-
ally or figuratively.

Creative activists can adapt this tactical insight to force their
target into a similar dilemma on the symbolic level.

Take Cindy Sheehan. In the summer of 2005, after the
death of her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, in the Iraq War,
she camped out in front of President Bush’s Texas ranch where
he had just begun a three-week vacation. Quoting Bush’s own
words back to him, she vowed not to leave until he met with her
to explain for what “noble cause” her son had died.

Once the media started covering the stand-off, Bush was
trapped in a decision dilemma: he was damned if he did meet
with her, damned if he didn’t. Meeting with her would’ve been
a media fiasco. Not meeting with her conceded her point. Ei-
ther way he lost. In the end, he never met with Sheehan, and
“Camp Casey” became one of the key watershed moments that
turned American public opinion against the war.

Cindy Sheehan.

PRINCIPLE: Put your target in a decision dilemma

Or consider the Whose Tea Party? action see CASE. GOP
Congressmen gathered on the Boston Tea Party ship for a
set-piece media stunt: tossing a trunk labelled “tax code” into
the harbor. But they were suddenly confronted by a dingy of
activists — “the Working Family Life Raft” — in the water be-
neath them, pleading not to be swamped by the proposed flat
tax. With cameras rolling, the target had two choices: either
toss the tax code in and sink the raft (as they did) or back
down on their declared intention to dispose of the tax code. By
throwing it in and capsizing the raft, they played into the activ-
ists’ story that the GOP’s proposed tax reform would “sink the
working family.” Backing down would also have undermined
the GOP argument by symboli-
cally conceding that the tax
would be harmful to working
families. As with Camp Casey,
this decision dilemma was not a
happy accident, but a key design
element of the action.

Often, for this principle to
work, you have to be prepared to
wait out your opponent. Cindy
Sheehan committed to camp-
ing outside Bush’s ranch for the
duration of his vacation. She wasn’t going anywhere. It was his
move, and he didn’t have one. Similarly, the Working Family
Life Raft bobbed in the water, pleading for the GOP to spare
working families while the media documented the event. Un-
like a lot of actions, there were no security guards to clear them
out. They could just wait, and the more the GOPers hesitated,
the more they reinforced the protesters’ message.

“Don’t let your
target walk out
the back door, and
don’t put yourself
in a situation where
they can wait you
out with impunity.”

TACTICS

Identity Correction p. 60
Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14
Sit-in web

PRINCIPLES

Take risks but take care p. 182

The real action is your

target's reaction web

Turn the tables p. 190

Get arrested in an intelligent way web

Be both expressive and

instrumental web

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Points of intervention p. 250
Activist realpolitik web

CASE STUDIES

Whose tea party? p. 392
Camp Casey web
Dow Chemical apologizes
for Bhopal p. 318

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: As with bear safety, so with activism: forc-
ing someone into a corner can sometimes provoke a violent
response. If your intention is to eliminate the flight option in a
fight-or-flight scenario, then you need to take all necessary pre-
cautions to minimize the risk to you and your allies, should the
target choose to lash out see PRINCIPLE: Take risks, but take care.

PRINCIPLE: Put your target in a decision dilemma

PI1INCIPLE :

™ Reframe

IN SUM

The easiest way to win an
argument is to redefine
the terms of the debate.

EPIGRAPH

“There is a basic truth about
framing. If you accept the
other guy’s frame, you lose.”

-George Lakoff

PRACTITIONERS

Design Studio for Social Intervention
Voina

CONTRIBUTED BY

Doyle Canning
Patrick Reinsborough

The United Workers and Public Justice Center on the National Day of Action Against Wage Theft - an act of radical
reframing.

Reframing is a process of replacing an old story with a new one
by widening the frame, narrowing the frame, or shifting the
frame to another scene entirely.

The powers-that-be usually go to great lengths to frame
their agenda in a way that is favorable for their interests —
think nanny state, tax relief, death panels. Like a camera’s view-
finder, the frame of a narrative focuses the public on specific
information that reflects the interests of the framers.

How do you reframe an issue? The first step is to conduct a
narrative power analysis see THEORY- — a study of how the issue
is currently framed, which seeks to identify its underlying as-
sumptions — for example, “there is no alternative,” or “a rising
tide lifts all boats,” or “the U.S. brings democracy to the Third
World.”

Following from your narrative power analysis, come up with
another story that exposes the faulty assumptions of the status
quo. For instance, cast new characters who previously haven’t
been heard from, or redefine the problem by introducing a
different set of values, or pose a new solution that is more
compelling than what is currently on offer. Reframing often

168

PRINCIPLE: Re frame

involves making the invisible visible see PRINCIPLE by highlighting
aspects of the story that have been left out of the dominant story.

Next, design a reframing action that seeks to relocate the
story. Redirect the public’s focus to the scene of the crime to
reveal a villain, whether it’s a corporate boardroom or a CEO’s
seventh home. Use an emblematic location tied to an histori-
cal narrative, like a monument or a park with a name that is
significant in the story (Liberty Plaza Park or a Christopher
Columbus statue for instance) . Tie your action to high-profile
events or dates that are soon to follow, framing and foreshad-
owing the public conversation around those celebrations. For
instance, on Tax Day posing as tax collectors at the HQs of the
Big Banks and trying to get them to pay their proper share
might reframe the public discussion of tax evasion.

If you expand your reframing action into a campaign, you
might succeed in injecting powerful new memes into the media
and policy discourse. Adam Kader of the Arise Workers Center
in Chicago offers this example:

Institutions like the Department of Labor and the
mainstream media referred to the phenomena of
worker exploitation as “non-payment of wages.” Then,
several years ago, worker centers designed the “wage
theft” meme. This meme overthrows the dominant
assumption that wages are the property of the boss,
to be shared with workers. Rather, in this new nar-
rative, wages are the property of workers, and have
been stolen by the boss. . . . The media has begun to
use the meme when they report on our campaigns
and legislators have incorporated the phrase “wage
theft” in the names of bills . 1

Effective creative action should serve the larger strategic goal
of provoking a shift in the public conversation. Reframing is
often a critical step to winning a campaign and making real
change.

1 Adam Kader, “Storytelling as Organizing: How to Rescue the Left from its Crisis of Imagination," In
These Times, January 10, 2011, http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6824/

FURTHER INSIGHT

Drew Westen, The Political Brain:

The Role of Emotion in Deciding
the Fate of the Nation. Philadel-
phia, PA: Public Affairs, 2008.

Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough.
Redmagining Change: An Introduction to
Story-Based Strategy, smart Meme, 2009.

smartmeme.org/downloads/smart-

Meme.RelmaginingChange.pdf

ThinkProgress. “Thanks to the 99
Percent Movement, Media Finally Cov-
ering Jobs Crisis and Marginalizing
Deficit Hysteria,’’ October 18, 2011

http://thinkprogress.org/

special/2011/10/18/346892/chart-media-

jobs-wall-street-ignoring-deficit-hysteria/

Charlotte Ryan. Prime Time Activism:
Media Strategies for Grassroots
Organizing. Boston: South End Press, 1991.

The Centre for Media Justice, “Toolbox"

http://centerformediajustice.org/toolbox/

The Praxis Project. Fair Game: A Strategy
for Racial Justice Communications in the
Obama Era. Oakland, CA: AK Press 2011.

George Lakoff. Don't think of an Elephant!
Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.
White River Jet, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004.

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Direct action p. 32
Identity correction p. 60
Electoral guerrilla theater p. 40

PRINCIPLES

Think narratively p. 18 6
Make the invisible visible p. 152

THEORIES

Memes p. 242

Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Public Option Annie p. 346
The battle in Seattle p. 286
Streets into gardens p. 368
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396

PRINCIPLE: Reframe

PRINCIPLE :

eek common ground

IN SUM

In search of allies and points
of agreement, we must grow
comfortable adopting the
rhetoric of worldviews we
might otherwise oppose.

PRACTITIONERS

Evangelical Climate Initiative
smart Meme

FURTHER INSIGHT

Beyond the Choir, “Narrative Insurgency:
Grassroots Communication Tips, Part
3," by Jonathan Matthew Smucker

http://trb.la/wUvwRJ

Beyond the Choir, “Speak the
Truth, Tell a Story: Building a
Successful Antiwar Movement,"
by Jonathan Matthew Smucker

http://trb.la/AAPfNy

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

170

When disagreeing with someone else’s ideas, it can be tempt-
ing to engage in narrative attack; to make a direct attack on
one narrative from the vantage point, and in the language, of
your opposing narrative. For example, when someone wraps
climate change-denial views in the rhetoric of creationist
beliefs, it is tempting to directly attack the climate change
denier’s whole belief system. Once a narrative attack is made,
persuasion becomes nearly impossible because the attacked
person feels that their whole belief system is under siege.
Change becomes impossible.

A narrative insurgency approach, on the other hand, exam-
ines the other’s narrative framework, learning the component
parts and looking for points of connection. Rather than
directly attack a creationist’s whole belief system, for instance,
a “narrative insurgent” looks to foment home-grown insur-
gency against the most problematic beliefs by identifying
ally beliefs and seeking to reinforce them. When speaking to
creationists about environmental issues, for example, empha-
sizing humanity’s mandate to care for God’s creation can be
an effective point of entry.

If we are to transform the political culture, we need to
think not in terms of attacking opponents’ views head-on, but
rather in terms of fomenting homegrown insurgency. The
root of the word insurgency is “rise up.” Insurgencies rise up
from within. Narrative insurgency rises up from within a cul-
tural narrative, transforming that culture from the inside out.

The narrative insurgent’s approach, well executed, can be
very effective for identifying and drawing out allies: in this
case, creationists who care about the environment and are
uneasy seeing it ravaged for the sake of private profit. By
repeating and positively reinforcing this message in the con-
text of ongoing engagement, the belief that we should care for
the earth can be strengthened within the given community’s
complex collective belief system.

Narrative insurgents do not reject problematic narratives
wholesale, but distinguish between those components that
are allied, hostile or neutral to their cause. They embrace
as much of a cultural narrative as possible — the allied and
neutral components — and encourage the further develop-

PRINCIPLE: Seek common ground

ment of the allied components,
using these as the foundations
for their organizing efforts
with and within the given com-
munity.

This approach doesn’t mean
always avoiding direct confron-
tation with harmful narratives
and beliefs. It’s more like a
preference for finding common
ground and utilizing positive
reinforcement whenever pos-
sible. Ultimately there comes
a time when a destructive nar-
rative becomes untenable to
a critical mass of people, and
when a new polarization will be
useful (e.g. during a revolu-
tionary moment) . The strategy here is to lay the groundwork
that necessarily precedes such a moment: to feed the allied
components within a narrative until they are strong enough
to burst out of the old framework.

Narrative insurgency only works if applied in the context
of accountable relationships with reliable feedback loops. A
change agent learns the intricacies of cultural narratives not
to deceive people, but to communicate common values in a
language that holds meaning for large numbers of people.
While she may often disagree with others, she still values and
even empathizes with their perspectives. She is forgiving to-
ward shortcomings, always rooting for people, always finding
something worthy of praise. Over time, narrative insurgency
becomes second nature: we don’t feign identification with the
allied and neutral components within another community’s
narrative or culture, because our orientation is to connect
with people wherever and whenever possible.

Narrative insurgents seek common ground with allies by
branding their eco-friendly product with the slogan “God
is green."

TACTICS

Infiltration p. 64
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

Reframe p. 168

Team up with experts p. 184

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Stay on message p. 178

Use others' prejudices against them p. 192

Consider your audience p. 118

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244
Cultural hegemony p. 222
The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Whose tea party? p. 392
The Big Donor Show p. 294

PRINCIPLE: Seek common ground

ift the spectrum of allies

IN SUM

Movements seldom win by
overpowering the opposition;
they win by shifting the
support out from under
them. Determine the social
blocs at play on a given
issue, and work to shift them
closer to your position.

PRACTITIONERS

April 6 Youth Movement
Cindy Sheehan

FURTHER INSIGHT

Explanation of the “Spectrum
of Allies," from NewTactics

http://trb.la/AnSvdW

Training for Change [tactics
for strategic nonviolence]

www.trainingforchange.org

Doug M cAdam, Freedom Summer.
Oxford Univ. Press, 1988.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

Activists are often good at analyzing systemic social problems,
but less good at thinking systemically about organizing.

Activism is about using your power and voice to make
change. Organizing is about that, too, but it’s also about ac-
tivating and empowering others. It helps to think in terms of
groups. Successful movement-building hinges on being able
to see a society in terms of specific blocs or networks, some of
which are institutions (unions,
churches, schools), others of
which are less visible or cohe-
sive, like youth subcultures or
demographic groupings.

Analyzing your spectrum
of allies can help you to iden-
tify and mobilize the networks
around you. A spectrum-of-al-
lies analysis can be used to map
out a campaign or to strategize
for a whole social movement.

Here’s how a spectrum-of-allies analysis works: in each
wedge you can place different individuals (be specific: name
them!), groups, or institutions. Moving from left to right, iden-
tify your active allies : people who agree with you and are fight-
ing alongside you; your passive allies: folks who agree with you
but aren’t doing anything about it; neutrals: fence-sitters, the
unengaged; passive opposition: people who disagree with you
but aren’t trying to stop you; and finally your active opposition.

Some activist groups only speak or work with those in the
first wedge (active allies), building insular, self-referential,
marginal subcultures that are incomprehensible to everyone
else. Others behave as if everyone is in the last wedge (ac-
tive opposition), playing out the “story of the righteous few,”
acting as if the whole world is against them. Both of these
approaches virtually guarantee failure. Movements win not
by overpowering their active opposition, but by shifting the
support out from under them.

For example, in 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordi-
nating Committee (SNCC), a major driver of the civil rights
movement in the U.S. South, conducted a “spectrum-of-allies

“Movements
win not by
overpowering their
active opposition ,
but by shifting
the support out
from under them.”

PRINCIPLE: Shift the spectrum of allies

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32

PRINCIPLES

Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Choose tactics that support
your strategy p. 112
Escalate strategically p. 134
Reframe p. 168

Make new folks welcome p. 150
Think narratively p. 186
Consider your audience p. 118

Spectrum of Allies. Art by Joshua Kahn Russell.

style” analysis. They determined that they had a lot of pas-
sive allies who were students in the North: these students were
sympathetic, but had no entry point into the movement. They
didn’t need to be “educated” or convinced, they needed an
invitation to enter.

To shift these allies from “passive” to “active,” SNCC sent
buses north to bring folks down to participate in the strug-
gle under the banner “Freedom Summer.” Students came in
droves, and many were deeply radicalized in the process, wit-
nessing lynching, violent police abuse, and angry white mobs,
all simply as a result of black activists trying to vote.

Many wrote letters home to their parents, who suddenly
had a personal connection to the struggle. This triggered an-
other shift: their families became passive allies, often bringing
their workplaces and social networks with them. The students,
meanwhile, went back to school in the fall and proceeded to
organize their campuses. More shifts. The result: a profound
transformation of the political landscape of the U.S. This cas-
cading shift of support, it’s important to emphasize, wasn’t
spontaneous; it was part of a deliberate movement strategy
that, to this day, carries profound lessons for other move-
ments.

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Cycles of social movements web

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web

Taco Bell boycott p. 372

Bidder 70 p. 290

Trail of Dreams p. 384

Wisconsin Capitol occupation p. 396

Justice for Janitors p. 326

PRINCIPLE: Shift the spectrum of allies

ow, don’t tell

IN SUM

Use metaphor, visuals
and action to show your
message rather than falling
into preaching, hectoring
or otherwise telling your
audience what to think.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Stephen Duncombe, Dream: Re-Imagining
Progressive Politics in an age of
Fantasy. New York: New Press, 2007.

Video: The Sound of Wealth Inequality

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=_AhucAN6C00

CONTRIBUTED BY

Doyle Canning
Patrick Reinsborough
Kevin Buckland

A picture is worth a thousand words. In today’s image-driven
news cycle and mass media culture, this is truer than ever.
Effective creative campaigns must be image-driven, too. In
other words, show, don’t tell. And there are lot of ways to do it:

Lead with story, not facts. Facts rarely speak for them-
selves. While the factual accuracy of your message is essential,
facts should only serve as the supporting details for the story,
not the hook that makes the story compelling.

If you want to convey the
devastation of unemployment,
don’t lead with statistics. Tell
us a compelling story about
one person. Then tell us there
are ten million more like her
out there.

“Showing not telling
means emphasizing
narrative over data
and creating a story
that puts the facts
in perspective.”

Make it visual. A lot of im-
portant stuff is hard to talk
about — it’s too big, far away, abstract or complex. Props,
visuals and concrete language can help bring things down
to human scale. Take economic inequality, for example.
You can easily get lost in the finer points of the tax code,
but when billionaire Warren Buffet says that his secretary
pays more taxes than he does, and that that’s wrong, it’s
hard to argue with. To draw attention to the increasing
disparity between CEO and worker pay, one group un-
veiled a tiny replica of the Washington Monument that
was 419 times smaller than the actual one they were hold-
ing their press conference in front of.

Use powerful metaphors. With metaphor you can show
something for what it is, rather than have to explain it. To
find your compelling metaphor, look for something that
embodies what you are trying to communicate. Recent-
ly, the immigration debate in the U.S. has been usefully
engaged via the metaphor of migratory birds (“Do migrat-
ing birds need passports too?”), neatly pointing up the
absurdity of the situation, without focusing on any specific
policy or piece of legislation.

PRINCIPLE: Show, don't tell

Speak with actions. Instead
of telling, act out what it
is that you want to say. At
protests, whenever there
are lines of police protect-
ing a bank, a metaphor is
being enacted that reflects
the reality of the situa-
tion: the state defends the
wealthy from the rest of
us. Sometimes it’s enough
to just point that out — or
you can ham it up see CASE:

Teddy bear catapult.

A well-designed action
explains itself, and ideally
offers multiple ways into
the issue. You want your au-
dience to reach their own
conclusion, rather than
feeling like they are being told what to think.

This simple image in this poster proved extremely
effective at putting pressure on cosmetics executives.

Preachy isn’t persuasive. Whether we’re telling a story, conjur-
ing a scene, offering up a metaphor, leading by example, or
letting our actions speak volumes, there are millions of ways
to convey our message and values without launching into a
political diatribe. Let’s do ourselves and our audience a favor:
Show, don’t tell.

TACTICS

Artistic vigil p. 10
Human banner p. 56
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Guerrilla projection p. 52
Trek p. 90
Direct action p. 32
Identity correction p. 60

PRINCIPLES

Reframe p. 168

Think narratively p. 186

Make the invisible visible p. 152

The real action is your

target's reaction web

Balance art and message p. 100

Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128

Put movies in the hands

of movements web

Consider your audience p. 118

Stay on message p. 178

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Memes p. 242
Floating signifier p.234

CASE STUDIES

The salt march p. 354
Teddy-bear catapult p. 380
Virtual streetcorners p. 388

PRINCIPLE: Show, don't tell

PRINCIPLE :

imple rules can have grand results

IN SUM

Movements, viral campaigns
and large-scale actions
can’t be scripted from the
top down. An invitation to
participate and the right set of
simple rules are often all the
starter-structure you need.

EPIGRAPH

“Sept 17. Wall Street.
Bring tent.”

-Adbusters

PRACTITIONERS

Improv Everywhere
Adbusters
350.org
Otpor!
UK Uncut
Ze Frank
Allan Kaprow
Women in Black

FURTHER INSIGHT

“We are the 99 Percent" tumblr

http://wearethe99percent.

tumblr.com/submit

Otpor!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor!

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

176

In 1986, computer scientists did an experiment on “ emergence

— where complex global behavior can arise” unplanned and
unprogrammed “from the interaction of simple local rules.”
They created virtual birds called “boids.” (The computer sci-
entists must have been from Brooklyn.) They put these boids
in a virtual environment and threw in a few virtual obstacles.
They assigned every boid the same three simple rules: fly for-
wards, stay a certain distance from any other boids near you
and don’t bang into obstacles. Then they threw the switch.
The birds flocked together. As the flock approached a cloud,
it would break up into smaller flocks to either side, and then
reform — all without the idea of flocking ever being pro-
grammed into the system.

This experiment was a stripped-down demonstration of
something we experience in nature and society all the time

— and something activists can put to good use.

If you’re trying to organize a participatory art piece, a mass
action or a viral campaign, you don’t need to script it all out —
even if you could. All you need are a few simple rules that par-
ticipants can sign on to. If you hit on the right rules, they can
lead to a surprisingly robust, effective and beautiful happening.

Think of Critical Mass, the
monthly mass bike rides that
take place in cities across the
world. The rules are simple:

Gather after work on the last
Friday of the month. Stick to-
gether. If you’re at the front,
you decide where the mass
goes next. If you’re at the
back, help stragglers keep
up. If you’re in the middle,
just ride, or, if you want, pro-
tect other bikers from cross-traffic. No one and everyone
is in charge. It’s an “organized coincidence.” And it works.

Flash mobs operate by the same logic. The call for a 2008
flash mob pillow fight on Wall Street consisted of two rules:
Bring a pillow, and don’t hit anybody who doesn’t also have a pillow.
Enough said!

“If you hit on
the right rules,
they can lead
to a surprisingly
robust, effective
and beautiful
happening.”

PRINCIPLE: Simple rules can have grand results

These kind of efforts work well on the Internet as well. Think
of the “we are the 99%” tumblr. The invitation was simple:
take a picture of yourself holding a sign that describes your
situation — for example, “I am a student with $25,000 in
debt.” Below that, write “I am the 99 percent.” The resulting
tapestry of voices became an eloquent statement of solidarity.

TACTICS

Distributed action p. 26
Flash mob p. 46
Mass street action p. 68
Occupation p. 78
Artistic vigil p. 10

PRINCIPLES

Use the power of ritual p. 198

Enable, don't command p. 132

No one wants to watch a drum circle p. 156

This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 18 8

Delegate p. 122

We are all leaders p. 202

THEORIES

Memes p. 242

The tactics of everyday life p. 268
The social cure p.264

A carnival protest might succeed with an “anything goes” rule
set, because, well, it’s a carnival. A more politically focused
mass street action see CASE: Citizen’s Posse or viral campaign
of distributed actions see CASE: Billionaires for Bush, however,
often needs a stronger framework. The nature of your action,
its complexity, and the degree of risk will determine the exact
rules required.

CASE STUDIES

Billionaires for Bush p. 296
Citizens' Posse p. 300
Critical Mass web
Occupy Wall Street web
Virtual streetcorners p. 388
Small gifts p. 360

HOW THE OPPOSITE IS EQUALLY TRUE: Simple rules, no matter how
well chosen, won’t magically do all the work on their own. Of-
ten, conveners (folks who make the invitation and set the rules)
have to stage manage all along the way to keep the seemingly
organic process going. The right set of simple rules can get you
most of the way there, though, and the “there” might be some-
where you never could have planned or imagined.

1 Boids, Background and update, Craig Reynolds, 1986 - http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids

PRINCIPLE: Simple rules can have grand results

PRINCIPLE :

tay on message

IN SUM

When we stay on message, we
communicate exactly what we
want our audience to know.
We create harmony between
our words, visuals and actions
and we deliver a clear, powerful
and irresistible call to action.

EPIGRAPH

“What you do speaks so loudly I
can’t hear what you are saying.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

PRACTITIONERS

smart Meme
SPIN Project
Beyond the Choir
Ripple Strategies
Artist Network of Refuse & Resist

FURTHER INSIGHT

Beyond the Choir, “Grassroots
Communications Tips''

http://trb.la/y7Baux

smartMeme, “Resources''
http://www.smartmeme.org/
section. php?id=86

The Spin Project, “Spin Works! A
Media Guidebook for the Rest of Us"

http://www.spinproject.org/
article. php?id=172

Ritchie, Paul. Stay on Message.
Vivid Publishing, 2010.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Celia Alario

Message discipline is the art of
communicating what you set
out to communicate, clearly,
memorably and consistently.
Everything from your talking
points for an interview to the
slogans on your banner to the
visuals you create for an event
should all align to support your
core message.

“Message
discipline is not
the enemy
of creativity.
Far from it”

WHY MESSAGE DISCIPLINE MATTERS:

It works: When you’re on message, you’re more likely to
reach your audience and move them to action.

It honors your group process: You’ve worked hard with your
group to determine what needs to be communicated.
Staying on message honors that hard work and strategic
thinking, communicating only what all of you have agreed
is the right message.

Make it stick: Say one thing and say it well. The average
person needs exposure to multiple sensory impressions of a
message before it sinks in. When you practice message dis-
cipline, the consistency of your message helps it to make
it stick.

Avoid static in the channel: Anything you say or do can be

used against you in the court of public opinion, so make
sure your words and actions are in sync with your group’s
message. Strip away any of the clutter that could be static
in the channel. Remember: less is more.

HOWTO ACHIEVE IT:

In interviews: Spokesfolks should practice the ABC’s: ac-
knowledge the question, build a bridge from the question to
your talking points; and communicate your message.

178

PRINCIPLE: Stay on message

Example:

A “That’s a great question” or “I’m glad you asked
that.”

B “I think the important issue is...” or “The real
question is...”

C Insert your clear, concise, powerfully worded
message.

In our visuals and actions: When designing your action,
imagine a photo of it — image only, no caption. Could
that photo communicate your message? If your audience
could see you from afar but not hear you, would they get
your message? How can you increase that possibility? See
THEORY: Action logic.

PRINCIPLES

Consider your audience p. 118

Do the media’s work for them p. 124

Show, don't tell p. 174

Think narratively p. 186

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Balance art and message p. 100

THEORIES

Memes p. 242

The propaganda model p. 2 56

Inventory your event: Everything your audience sees or
hears at your action is inevitably a part of your message, so
pay attention to details. What are your spokesfolks wear-
ing? Are they drinking out of a Styrofoam cup? A bit of
mindfulness as your event unfolds can insure the impact
you desire.

Message discipline is not the enemy of creativity. Far from
it. Placards can have different messages. Each spokesperson
can share a sound bite that reflects their own unique experi-
ence. But when you are “on message,” all elements reinforce
your core message. Each action element or interview response
stands on its own, successfully delivering a strong message to
your audience with clarity, consistency and credibility.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: A sound bite will never cover everything
you want to say. It may be true that decades of financial irre-
sponsibility or hundreds of years of colonial oppression got us
into this mess, but part of the art of message discipline is tam-
ing the urge to unpack all those details each time you speak.
Keep your core message simple and crisp, and recognize that
it’s just the opening volley in your work on this issue.

PRINCIPLE: Stay on message

179

gN PRINCIPLE :

wTake leadership from the
most impacted

IN SUM

Effective activism requires
providing appropriate
support to, and taking
direction from, those who
have the most at stake.

PRACTITIONERS

The Ruckus Society
Indigenous Environmental Network
Movement Generation
Peace Brigades International
Design Studio for Social Intervention
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Los Angeles Poverty Department
Mitch Snyder

FURTHER INSIGHT

Caron Atlas, ed. Arts & Democracy
Project. People Who Live and
Work in Multiple Worlds. Full Circle
Color. 2011 Available on line:

http://www.statevoices.org/system/

files/A%2526DBridgeBook.pdf

Sheila Wilmot, Taking Responsibility,
Taking Direction: White Anti-Racism
in Canada. Arbeiter Ring, 2006.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

We’re all familiar with liberal
do-gooder arrogance — the
kind that stems from having
the luxury of choosing from
a salad bar of causes because
none are immediately con-
straining their lives, or assum-
ing that because you studied
an issue in a university, you’re
an expert. Avoid being that
person: cultivate humility and
take direction and leadership
from those most affected by an
issue.

Because people on the receiving end of great injustices
have to live with the consequences of campaigns that seek to
address those injustices, they have the most to gain from vic-
tory — and the most to lose if something goes wrong. They’re
also the best equipped to know, and to articulate, workable
solutions to their problems. A campaign that ignores or mini-
mizes their knowledge and voices could easily do more harm
than good.

Accepting guidance from another isn’t always easy for peo-
ple who themselves identify as leaders. Self-identified “lead-
ers” sometimes rush in too quickly, confident they’ve got the
answer while their preconceptions and prejudices blind them
to the organic answers all around them. We can mitigate
these blind-spots by being intentional about respecting the
process and cultivating accountability.

Accountability can be a scary concept for activists, but it’s
best to think of it as a proactive process that we walk together,
rather than a standard that is either achieved or not.

The booklet Organizing Cools the Planet outlines four basic
principles for cultivating accountability:

Transparency means being clear about your politics, orga-
nizational structure, goals, desires and weaknesses. The

The Accountability Cycle. Artist: Joshua Kahn Russell.

180

PRINCIPLE: Take leadership from the most impacted

point here is to be as open as possible about your perspec-
tives and motivations.

Participation is about actively and equitably engaging with
folks about the decisions that affect them.

Reflection and deliberation means that we actively open up
conversation to re-evaluate where we’re headed. It happens
after participation, but once it’s begun, it is a continuous
thread that is woven throughout the experience.

Response is the ability to make amendments and adjust-
ments to issues raised by Reflection and deliberation.

However, accountability is not our goal; collaboration is our
goal. Accountability is the pathway we walk. The cycle above
moves us toward increasingly successful collaborations. Don’t
be discouraged if collaboration is difficult at first. Trust takes
time. Be forgiving of yourself and others; we all make mis-
takes see THEORY: Anti-oppression.

The Ruckus Society’s experience with this principle is in-
structive. Ruckus is a network of direct action trainers and
coordinators. After years of grappling with the problematic
dynamic of “parachuters” coming into people’s communities
from the outside, Ruckus has developed a protocol where they
only go where they’re asked and prioritize long-term relation-
ship building. Their “Ruckus Action Framework” is a great
reference tool to use when building a similar protocol within
your group.

Taking leadership from the most impacted is a great op-
portunity to learn from and support impacted groups in their
struggles. It can be one of the most profound and rewarding
experiences of activism.

TACTICS

Boycott web
Trek p. 90

Eviction blockade p. 44
Direct action p. 32
Strategic nonviolence p. 88

PRINCIPLES

Challenge patriarchy as you organize p. 108
Praxis makes perfect p.162
Consider your audience p. 118
!Ne are all leaders p. 202

THEORIES

Environmental justice p. 228
Pedagogy of the oppressed p. 246
Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Taco Bell boycott p. 372
Trail of Dreams p. 384

1 Hilary Moore and Joshua Kahn Russell, Organizing Cools the Planet (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2011).

2 The framework is reproduced on page 54 of Organizing Cools the Planet, available for download
at http://organizingcoolstheplanet.wordpress.com/get-copies-of-ocp/.

PRINCIPLE: Take leadership from the most impacted

PRINCIPLE :

wTake risks, but take care

IN SUM

Needlessly endangering
the safety of you or the
people around you hurts the
movement. Don’t sacrifice
care of self or others for the
sake of being “hardcore.”

EPIGRAPH

“Martyrdom is a
fascist tendency.”

-Gopal Dayanenni

PRACTITIONERS

The Ya Basta Association

FURTHER INSIGHT

RANT Trainers Collective, “Resources"

http://rantcollective.net/article.

php?list=type&type=17

Ruckus Society, “Training &
Action Support”

http://ruckus.org/article.

php?list=type&type=64

M/or Resisters League, “Nonviolence
Training: Nonviolent Action Preparation ”

http://www.warresisters.org/node/1277

Alliance of Community Trainers,
“Nonviolent Direct Action Training
and Support”

http://trainersalliance.org

Destructables, “Copwatch:
Know Your Rights!"

http://destructables.org/node/85

Destructables, “Affinity Groups"

http://destructables.org/node/54

CONTRIBUTED BY

Joshua Kahn Russell

182

Direct action is a tool that op-
pressed people have used to
build their power throughout
history. When communities
don’t have billions of dollars to
spend, they leverage risk. They
put their bodies, freedom, and
safety on the line.

Direct action carries some
inherent risk. That’s the whole
idea. Designing an action is
therefore about minimizing
that risk in a way that is ac-
countable to participants, the
community, yourself, and the
movement. When activists let
the romance of confrontation
overshadow meticulous care in
action planning, they may put
others in harm’s way, or may leave the movement to deal with
the consequences of their risky behavior.

A good action planner distinguishes between the risks she
can (and should) control and the ones she cannot, and clari-
fies to all participants what the potential consequences may be.
Thorough action planning is a responsibility you have to the
people around you. Even if you plan well, if action-day comes
and the situation is not what you expected, don’t be afraid to
call it off. Better to hold off and execute the action well another
day than get into something your group is unprepared for.

The Ruckus Society pamphlet, A Tiny Blockades Book, out-
lines a number of key considerations you should keep in mind
in planning your action:

• Not everyone is taking the same risks. Race, class,
gender identity (real and perceived), age, appearance,
immigration status, physical ability, being perceived
as a “leader,” all change your relationship to the ac-
tion; i.e. the risks of violence and arrest by the police
and the potential legal and economic consequences

Trainers Daniel Hunter and Joshua Kahn Russell facilitate
a nonviolent direct action training for the anti-fracking
movement in Nov 2011.

PRINCIPLE: Take risks , but take care

of the action. Also remember that there are power
dynamics within your action group. Pretending that
they do not exist or ignoring them “for the good of
the action,” can compromise your ability to execute
well, increasing risks...

• Some devices increase the risk of injury simply by
design: U-locking your neck to a fifty-five gallon drum
filled with concrete means that any attempt to move
the drum could snap your neck. That is the point ■ — you
create this situation on purpose, or not at all . . .

• This kind of gear increases the “staying power” of your
action by creating a deep decision dilemma see PRIN-
CIPLE for the opposition. . . But if you are lying down
in front of a truck and the driver is not aware that you
are there, then there is no decision dilemma, and no
action logic see PRINCIPLE: Action logic. That is not di-
rect action, it is an accident waiting to happen.

• . . .The best actions are the ones where we get to stay as
long as we want and the action ends on our terms — not
in arrest or injury.

• Practice. Practice. Practice. The more you practice, the
safer you will be and the more effective your action will be.

Some tactics should never be attempted without a thor-
ough safety plan and skill-level assessment, such as a technical
(climbing) banner hang where a fall can often prove fatal.
Direct action is not a game.

Be humble. Understand that Beautiful Trouble is intended
to be a broad toolkit, not a direct action training manual. If you
want to design a direct action, get the proper training (see the
attached list of groups) .

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14
Banner hang p. 12
Occupation p. 78
Sit-in web

Eviction blockade p. 44
Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Infiltration p. 64
Creative disruption p. 18
Public filibuster p. 86

PRINCIPLES

Anyone can act p. 98
We are all leaders p. 202
Pace yourself p. 158

THEORIES

Anti-oppression p. 212
Points of intervention p. 250

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286
Occupy Wall Street web

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Some schools of civil disobedience (for
example, Gandhian civil disobedience) emphasize that “our
suffering can touch the hearts of our adversaries,” and there-
fore build prolongedjail sentences or physical harm into their
action logic. This is a planned orientation to the action, and
not a license for recklessness or martyrdom.

PRINCIPLE: Take risks, but take care

183

XfiX PRINCIPLE :

wTeam up with experts

(but don’t become “the expert"]

IN SUM

Cultivating a fluid, symbiotic
relationship between activists
and experts is key to organizing
effective interventions
into complex issues.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Brooke Singer

Experts can be terribly helpful co-conspirators and there are
plenty of them out there to befriend. So go ask one for help.
Why? An expert can be a great source of powerful, actionable
information or can save you much embarrassment by pointing
out flaws in your approach. An expert can help you do some-
thing you don’t know how to do or gain access to something that
requires credentials. An expert can put you in contact with even
more experts. And an expert can introduce new audiences to
your work.

Choose an expert whose work is aligned with your mission to
increase your chance of a positive response. If the response is no,
then simply move on to the next. (Remember: there are many
experts in this world!). Experts often respond favorably because
they secretly wish they could act like independent artists and
activists like you. Experts tend to work within established institu-
tions and are beholden to power structures that typically limit
speech and action. For that reason, it’s important to be respect-
ful of the limits of what they can say, do, or sign their name to.

As you continue to work on your project or campaign, you
might find that people start treating you like the expert.
People, you notice, are really listening to what you have to say. You
might be invited to give a talk or a journalist calls for a quote. A
“mediagenic” project propels your cause, bringing your message
to the widest possible audience. Fantastic! Use the attention to
your advantage.

But beware of getting too comfortable in the role of expert.
Remain tactical. Construct your environment and apply pres-
sure as needed. If your job is done or the project has run its
course, then don’t linger at the mic. Reap the benefits of acting
fast and freely, then disappear. Experts have made a long-term
commitment and are good at sustainability; they choose their
territory and stick it out, for better or worse. Activists and experts
are simpatico but not interchangeable.

As a tactician, your job is to take risks. Generate a lot of ideas,
prototypes or situations to see what works. Don’t worry, good
ideas have the tendency to stick, whether you see them through
or others pick up where you left off.

184

PRINCIPLE: Know your cultural terrain

— Ani DiFranco

ink narratively

IN SUM

Sometimes the best response
to a powerful enemy is
a powerful story.

PRACTITIONERS

Iraq Veterans Against the War [IVAW]
Mitch Snyder
Cindy Sheehan
Eve Ensler

Los Angeles Poverty Department

FURTHER INSIGHT

smart Meme, “The Battle of
the Story Worksheet"

http://www.smartmeme.org/downloads/

sMbattleofthestoryworksheet.pdf

CONTRIBUTED BY

Doyle Canning
Patrick Reinsborough

As much as we’d like to believe that human beings are ra-
tional actors making decisions based on a sober weighing
of the facts, cognitive science reminds us that we are nar-
rative animals that apprehend the world through stories.
We make decisions more with our guts than our heads,
and the facts alone are seldom enough to move pub-
lic opinion. Therefore, social actors are constandy waging
a “battle of the story” to shape public perception.

Fairytale re purposed. Art by Kip Lyall.

The unequal nature of our media and communications sys-
tems see THEORY: The propaganda model means that moneyed
interests will always have more access to the airwaves — but
that doesn’t mean their story will be more creative or com-
pelling. We can make up some of that difference, not just by
becoming master storytellers, but by thinking narratively. By
paying attention to how story and power are always interwoven,
we can better understanding how political power operates,
and also how we can contest it.

Thinking narratively means we’re also strategizing narra-
tively and listening narratively. When designing our actions
and campaigns we need to step outside our own perspective

PRINCIPLE: Think narratively

to analyze how the issue is perceived by others who don’t share
our assumptions. (Remember, people respond to a story not
so much because it is true, but because they find it meaning-
ful.) We need to consider our audience see PRINCIPLE, and
build our campaign narrative out of the core building blocks
that make for a good story. Here are five to keep in mind:

Conflict

What is the problem or conflict being addressed? How is it
framed, and what does that frame leave out?

Characters

This can be a profound organizing question: Who are
“we”? Who are the other characters in the story? Do the
characters speak for themselves or is someone speaking on
their behalf see PRINCIPLE: Lead with sympathetic characters ?

Imagery

What powerful images can help convey the story? Is there
a metaphor or analogy that could describe the issue? A
good story uses imagery and evocative language to show us
what’s at stake rather than tell the audience what to think

see PRINCIPLE: Show, don’t tell.

Foreshadowing

What is our vision of resolution to the conflict? What is
our solution to the problem? How do we evoke that de-
sired resolution without, as it were, giving the end away?

see TACTIC: Prefigurative intervention.

Assumptions

Every story is built on unstated assumptions. Sometimes
the best way to challenge a competing story is to expose
and challenge its unstated assumptions see PRINCIPLE:
Make the invisible visible.

These five elements of story can be used together to conduct a
narrative power analysis on a dominant narrative or as scaffold-
ing to construct a narrative of change see THEORY: Narrative
power analysis. Fleshing out these elements as we plan out our
campaigns can also give us insights into strategic opportuni-
ties for action or intervention.

TACTICS

Banner hang p. 12

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Creative disruption p. 18
Media-jacking p. 12

PRINCIPLES

Seek common ground p. 170

Show, don't tell p. 174

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Reframe p. 1 68

Make the invisible visible p. 152

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Whose tea party? p. 392
Daycare center sit-in p. 316
The salt march p. 354
Harry Potter Alliance p. 322
Billionaires for Bush p. 296

PRINCIPLE: Think narratively

is ain’t the Sistine Chapel

IN SUM

Sky-high artistic expectations
can not only slow you
down, but can also critically
impair execution of your
tactic and strategy.

EPIGRAPH

“We have no art. We do
everything as well we can.”

-Balinese saying

PRACTITIONERS

Bread and Puppet Theater
Art and Revolution
Women's Action Coalition [WAC]
Teatro Campesino
Washington Action Group

FURTHER INSIGHT

Kershaw, Baz and Coult, Tony.
Engineers of the Imagination. UK:
Welfare State International, 1990.

Ruckus Society, “Creative Direct
Action Visuals Manual”

http://www. ruckus.org/article. php?id=305

Ruby, K. Wise Fool Basics:
A Handbook of Our Core Techniques.

Son Francisco, 1992.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

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Semi-anonymous internationally renowned street artist JR is famous for his wheat-pastings of his photographs. This work
is often done haphazardly and illegally, but the faces he pastes help to put a human face on the walls of ghetto areas -
and, even for the short time before they are taken down, provide a source of community empowerment and unity.

As artists, we often have the desire to produce the most beau-
tiful, provocative and breathtaking piece of art we can. This
can be a wonderful thing — sometimes. Other times, it’s
more important to get something out into the world that’s just
beautiful enough to do the job, and then move on to strategic
necessities.

Here are a few cases when seeking perfection could back-
fire on you:

• When building community is a key goal of your project,
creating a high bar of perfection can discourage broad
participation.

• When you have that Oh shit, it has to be done in 24 hrs! or
We need a small army to get all this done! moment of panic, it
might be better to wrap it up and move on to other tasks.

• When you are out of money or other resources, or on the
verge of depriving other essential parts of your action of
being funded or resourced.

PRINCIPLE: This ain’t the Sistine Chapel

• When the banner or prop will be viewed from hundreds of
feet away or is not the centerpiece of the action.

• When the prop will be smashed as part of the action or
taken into custody by the cops.

In short, if it’s in your strategic interest to spend all your
time and/or money on the “artfulness” of your action, then
go right ahead and do it. But if painting the Sistine Chapel
undermines your effectiveness, then do only what is strategi-
cally warranted and save your sanity and energy.

TACTICS

Street theater web
Artistic vigil p. 10
Flash mob p. 46
Mass street action p. 68
Guerrilla projection p.52
Human banner p. 56

PRINCIPLES

Balance art and message p. 100

Anyone can act p. 98

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176

Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128

Stay on message p. 178

Show, don't tell p. 174

Make it funny web

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

THEORIES

The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Points of intervention p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 230

CASE STUDIES

Teddy-bear catapult p. 380
Public Option Annie p. 346
Reclaim the Streets p. 350

The Cheap Art campaign of the Bread and Puppet Theater Company, housed in [and exemplified by] this repurposed
broken-down bus, promotes a populist DIY approach to art-making.

HOW THE OPPOSITE IS EQUALLY TRUE: There are times when qual-
ity really does matter, and an appropriate attention to detail
will get you the respect and the response you desire.

PRINCIPLE: This ain't the Sistine Chapel

/g\ PRINCIPLE :

' ‘Turn the tables

IN SUM

Sometimes the most compelling
way to expose an injustice
is to flip it around and visit
it upon the powerful.

EPIGRAPH

Remember the great scene from “Erin Brockovich” where the
hero brings a glass of contaminated water to a meeting with
the companies her clients have accused of contaminating
their drinking water. “You claim this water is perfectly safe to
drink?” she says. “Okay, drink this,” and she places the glass
of water before them. When they refuse, the injustice of the
situation is laid bare for all to see. She has “turned the tables.”

“Make the enemy live up to
their own book of rules.”

-Saul Alinsky

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace
Reclaim the Streets
More Gardens! Coalition
Erin Brockovich

FURTHER INSIGHT

Briarpatch Magazine. “Ten straight
questions: Learning about the Hetero-
sexuals Among Us." March/April 2007.

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/

articles/view/10-straight-questions

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mark Read

A young girl turns the tables on an Israeli border guard in this iconic West Bank barrier mural by Banksy.

People have an innate sense of fairness, but don’t always
see the injustices happening around them. By taking an exist-

190

PRINCIPLE: Turn the tables

ing unjust situation and dramatically flipping it back upon its
source, you can highlight the inherent asymmetry and acti-
vate people’s sense of fairness. Turning the tables like this can
be an effective means of garnering public support as well as
undercutting the moral authority of your target.

Consider the “turning streets into gardens” action see
CASE. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was attempting to sell
off community gardens to developers, an action that would
have displaced community groups and left the city with fewer
places for children to play. Community members were rightly
outraged, though initially they had a hard time gaining pub-
lic support. To turn the tables, the activists took over a city
block in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and turned it into a
vibrant civic space for conversation, education, and celebra-
tion. Their message was “Okay, if you can kick us out of our
gardens, then we can kick you off your streets.”

Greenpeace has consistently made use of this tactic to
shed light on toxic dumping. In 2003 they partnered with
families and victims of the massive chemical plant disaster in
Bhopal, India and attempted, unsuccessfully, to deliver seven
barrels of that toxic waste to the Dow Chemical company HQ
in Amsterdam. The action spoke directly to basic questions of
fairness and power: “If you can dump this toxic sludge on the
people of India, then we can dump it back on you.” Why is one
act illegal while its analogue goes unpunished?

Turning the tables poses this question in a pointed, common-
sense way, exposing hypocrisy and injustice for all to see. It’s
an easy frame for mainstream media to grasp, and difficult
for them to distort. For ah these reasons, it has the potential
to generate support for your cause, increase pressure on your
target, and enable you to win concessions.

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Identity correction p. 60
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Direct action p. 32
Hoax p. 54
Carnival protest web

PRINCIPLES

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Put your target in a
decision dilemma p. 1 66
The real action is your
target's reaction web
Show, don't tell p. 174
Reframe p. 168

Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 230

CASE STUDIES

Streets into gardens p. 368
Daycare center sit-in p. 316
Whose tea party? p. 392

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: An attempt to turn the tables can back-
fire on you if your analogy is inaccurate, indirect or insincere.
Sometimes even a clear analogy may be undermined by pow-
erful cultural assumptions. For instance, police have broad
cultural legitimacy as ethical agents of authority. Whether
it’s deserved or not, this is the reality within which we oper-
ate. Trying to turn the tables by building an equation around
police violence vs. protester violence is going to be an uphill
climb. Turning the tables must always take into account
cultural context and existing frames of understanding.

PRINCIPLE: Turn the tables

PRINCIPLE :

w Use others' prejudices against them

IN SUM

Your enemy’s prejudices about
you are a weakness that you
can exploit to your advantage.

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace
ACT UP
Justice for Janitors
SNCC

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Salt of The Earth. Directed
by Herbert J. Biberman. 1954.

Mary Elizabeth King. A Quiet
Revolution: The First Palestinian
Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance.
New York: Nation Books, 2007

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

A prejudice is a mental shortcut that leads a person to make
assumptions about others — assumptions that are often false
in predictable, and therefore useful, ways. Sexism, racism,
homophobia, ageism — all the -isms and the stereotypes
associated with them — can be used in one way or another.
For example:

Sexism 1

Want to know when that shipment of nuclear waste is going to
be docking so you can shut down the port at the right time?
Maybe someone posing as a distraught, pregnant girlfriend
whose guy is on the ship could make some calls and get the
info.

Sexism 2

Need to distract a security guard so you can complete your
action? Activists in D.C. planned to dump a ton of bloodied
scallop shells on the doorstep of Shell Oil to commemorate
the anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death and pressure the
company to withdraw from Ogoniland, Nigeria. One cute
young woman posing as a lost tourist was all it took to distract
the guard and provide enough time for the truck to position
itself, dump its load and drive off.

Ageism

Need to get information through enemy lines? During the
First Intifada or uprising in Palestine, 1987-1993, Israel tried
to quash the non-violent resistance in many ways, including
cutting communication and limiting travel between Palestin-
ian cities. In order to get the word out to coordinate strikes,
boycotts, and other actions, youth were enlisted to carry mem-
orized information between cities. The Israeli soldiers let the
kids through, never imagining they were doing the real work
of connecting the resistance.

Racism

Need to put more pressure on a target from unexpected di-
rections? Saul Alinsky relates a classic example of using rac-
ism to win in Chicago in the 1950s: In a campaign to improve

192

PRINCIPLE: Use others’ prejudices against them

slum conditions in an organized black ghetto, organizers took
the fight beyond their neighborhoods into the lily-white sub-
urb where the slumlord lived. The presence of black men and
women picketing outside his house led to a hood of phone
calls from the neighbors who didn’t care at all about the slums
and would not have gotten involved otherwise, but wanted to
keep their own neighborhood segregated, and so pressured
the slumlord into capitulating.

Classism

Need to find your way into a
corporate office or exclusive
event? Many a time the most
radical, hairy and scruffily
adorned activists have shaved,
ironed and primped their way
into a situation that would
have been off limits to those
in scrappy activist garb. You
know you are hardcore when
you will cut your hair, or wear
pantyhose, to insure the suc-
cess of an action!

“Only deploy
stereotypes in
situations where
the bigot eventually
realizes that it was
his own prejudices
that put him in
a compromised
position ”

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Beware of simply reinforcing negative
stereotypes. Try to only deploy stereotypes in situations where
the bigot eventually realizes that it was his own prejudices that
put him in a compromised position. Also, try to be transpar-
ent within your own work group about what forces are at play.

TACTICS

Invisible theater p. 82
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Direct action p. 32
Creative disruption p. 18
Advanced leafleting p. 8
Strategic nonviolence p. 168

PRINCIPLES

The real action is your

target’s reaction web

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Challenge patriarchy as

you organize p. 108

Turn the tables p. 190

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Consider your audience p. 118

Reframe p. 168

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Environmental justice p. 228
Anti-oppression p. 212

CASE STUDIES

Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282
Public Option Annie p. 346
Justice for Janitors p. 326
Modern Day Slavery Museum p. 338

1 Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (Vintage Bocks, 1971), 144.

PRINCIPLE: Use others’ prejudices against them

193

/g\ PRINCIPLE :

wllse the Jedi mind trick

(a.k.a Confidence is contagious]

IN SUM

The Jedi mind trick worked
for Luke Skywalker,
and it can work for you, too.

You just have to believe in
yourself, and others will, too.

EPIGRAPH

“Whether you think you
can, or you think you
can’t - you’re right.”

- Henry Ford

PRACTITIONERS

Abbie Hoffman

FURTHER INSIGHT

Wookieepedia, “Mind Trick”
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mind_trick

Video: “Kid Gives Inspiring Speech to
All Children Learning to Ride a Bike"

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=c47otcg13Z8

Destructables, “Evasion”

http://destructables.org/node/62

CONTRIBUTED BY

Samantha Corbin

Aside from being able to move objects with your mind and
having a retractable sword made out of freaking light (how
cool is that??), the best thing about being a Jedi has got to be
the mind trick. The ability to persuade with a calm voice and
a finger wave, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,”
could prove indispensable in any number of beautiful trouble-
making situations.

H IN DSIGHT

Those really were tlx droids you urre loo king for

“Hindsight: Those really were the droids you were looking for." The Jedi mind trick can work not just on the Empire's
storm troopers, but also on security guards, journalists and yourself.

Good news: this hypnotic power of persuasion is actually
within your reach. It springs from an innate authority, an irra-
tional confidence that mystically bends the world to your will.
Though this may not work on your bill collector (“I’m not the
deadbeat you’re looking for”), it may work in convincing the
mainstream media to cover your event or the police to leave
you alone. You might even pass unchallenged through the front
gate of a nuclear power plant, or take charge of a closed-door

194

PRINCIPLE: Use the Jedi mind trick

meeting to which you weren’t
invited. With the right attitude,
much more becomes possible
than you might have thought.

With nothing more than
confidence, an activist adept at
the Jedi mind trick can make
a security guard look the oth-
er way, or convince thousands
of people, including a BBC
news anchor, that he is a DOW
chemical spokesperson, or that
it’s perfectly normal to wear a
climbing helmet in the middle
of a convention center and
start climbing the scaffolding.

Here are a couple of things
to keep in mind as you prepare
to break out the Jedi mind
trick on an unsuspecting low-
level functionary:

“With nothing more
than confidence,
an activist adept at
the Jedi mind trick
can make a security
guard look the
other way, or
convince thousands
of people, including
a BBC news
anchor, that he is
a DOW chemical
spokesperson ”

Know the rules, suspend the rules. The ability to trans-
gress, trespass, or otherwise do what you shouldn’t with
complete self-assurance, especially if challenged, carries
its own power.

Act like you belong (a.k.a. fake it ‘till you get kicked out).

Authority is more performed than innate. We constantly
interact with, and respond to, coded indicators of status
and authority, making assumptions based on attitude,
manner, dress, accent, friendliness, sexiness, and other
cues. By understanding and playing on these indicators
we can also co-opt the authority attached to them.

TACTICS

Infiltration p. 64
Creative disruption p. 18
Banner hang p. 12
Hoax p. 54
Direct action p. 32

PRINCIPLES

Use other people's prejudices

against them p. 192

Anyone can act p. 98

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

Use the law, don't be afraid of it . 196

Don't dress like a protester p. 126

THEORIES

The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Bidder 70 p. 290

Streets into gardens p. 368

Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282

Dow Chemical apologizes

for Bhopal p. 318

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Beware the backlash. The Jedi mind trick
wears off quickly, and tends to leave the unsuspecting dupe
it was used on angry and embarrassed. No one likes to feel
like they got tricked. Use this tactic only with people you’re
unlikely to see again. To avoid unnecessary backlash, tell the
truth as much as possible and let other people fill in their
own assumptions.

PRINCIPLE: Use the Jedi mind trick

PI1INCIPLE :

w Use the law, don't be afraid of it

IN SUM

Talk to more than one lawyer
and pick the one whose
advice you want to follow.

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum

The law is a funny thing. Sometimes the Yes Men ask lawyers
before we do anything particularly dangerous. We get one of
two answers: “Don’t do it! It’s illegal. You’ll get sued! ” or “Awe-
some! It’s probably legal, and besides, you’re righteous in the
court of public opinion.” The “awesomes,” are almost always
right for two reasons: 1) In the U.S. at least, the law does in
fact protect freedom of speech to a very high degree (not al-
ways a good thing: corporate
lobbying is also considered
free speech), and 2) corpora-
tions don’t sue you because
they know how it can blow back
on them and they want to avoid
having yet more egg on their
big, blank, mechanical faces.

In the Yes Men’s twelve years
of activism, we’ve only been
sued once.

Corporations won’t sue you, but they may send you a cease-
and-desist letter. Rather than a cause to worry, this can be a
great boon. C&D letters are letters from lawyers that threaten
you with a lawsuit, usually in highfalutin’ legal language. They
carry absolutely no legal weight and can be ignored — though
of course you then take the risk that the lawyers will follow
through. Almost always, however, the C&D letter, while not
exactly a bluff, is a formality. For example, companies have
trademarks, and in order to keep them they have to demon-
strate that they’re making efforts to defend them — and a
C&D letter qualifies as evidence of such an effort.

If you receive a C&D letter, it’s a tremendous opportunity
to stretch out the story and get an additional wave of news
coverage for your action. First thing we do when we receive a
C&D letter is reach out to a lawyer we trust and see what she
thinks — though we’re always prepared to ignore her advice.
Then, we consider whether there’s anything funny we can do
with the letter. For example, after we put up the coalcares.org
site, we received a C&D letter from Peabody Energy, Amer-
ica’s largest coal producer. Instead of taking down the site,
we responded in a way that enlarged the issue. It’s not just

“We subsequently
received three
more cease-and-
desist letters ,
which we also
ignored ”

196

PRINCIPLE: Use the law, don't be afraid of it

Peabody that’s giving kids asthma, we noted, but all Ameri-
can coal companies. So we removed Peabody’s name from the
site and added the names of all the other coal companies. We
subsequently received three more C&D letters, which we also
ignored.

Lawyers are not to be feared, though the same can’t always
be said for the law. If you are, for example, pretending to be
Exxon-Mobil at a petroleum conference, there is no need to
break character when the conference’s private security lock
you in a small room and cross-examine you (trust us on this
one) . But when the real police arrive, you may as well tell them
honestly what you are up to. They may even turn out to be on
your side, especially if you seem reasonable in contrast to the
exasperated conference organizer or private security goon. In
general, you should avoid lying to the police unless you have a
really really good reason.

Remember: Don’t be afraid of suits, law- or otherwise.

HOW THE OPPOSITE IS EQUALLY TRUE: Sometimes corporations
do sue activists, especially those with limited resources to de-
fend themselves. That’s called a SLAPP (Strategic Litigation
Against Public Participation) suit. However, usually, all you
really need to do to avoid any such corporate shenanigans is
be ready to widely publicize the brouhaha, and hurl the afore-
mentioned egg smack dab onto the corporate forehead.

TACTICS

Hoax p. 54
Infiltration p. 64
Identity correction p. 60

PRINCIPLES

Take risks but take care p. 182

The real action is your

target's reaction web

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

Put your target in a

decision dilemma p. 166

Make it funny web

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Points of interventions p. 250

CASE STUDIES

Dow Chemical apologizes
for Bhopal p. 318
McLibel web

Yes Men pose as Exxon web

PRINCIPLE: Use the law, don't be afraid of it

XfiX PRINCIPLE :

w Use the power of ritual

IN SUM

Rituals like weddings, funerals,
baptisms, exorcisms and vigils
are powerful experiences
for participants. By adapting
sacred and symbolic elements
you can use the power of
ritual to give your actions
greater depth and power.

EPIGRAPH

“Ritual and ceremony in
their due times kept the
world under the sky and the
stars in their courses.”

-Terry Pratchett

The power of ritual, as in the candlelight vigil above, provides an outlet for both individual catharsis and collective
expression.

PRACTITIONERS

Living Theater
Women In Black
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Suzanne Lacy
Artists Network of Refuse & Resist
Rivane Neuenschwander
Billionaires for Bush
Abbie Hoffman
Reverend Billy
Arlington West
“I Dream Your Dream”

FURTHER INSIGHT

/ W/sh Your Wish @ The New Museum
http://www.newmuseum.org/rivane/
Memorial Ritual and Art @ MICA

http://trb.la/zgnZFF

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

Rituals can connect us to the deepest truths of why politics
matters. As anyone who has participated in a candlelight vigil
will know, sometimes the act of quietly bearing witness to an
injustice can carry more moral force than railing against it.
A ritual can also give an otherwise mundane political gath-
ering a stronger storyline, such as the 2011 protest of mort-
gage fraud at Chase Bank in New York City, where hundreds
of members of faith communities and several ministers per-
formed an exorcism on a bank “possessed by the demons of
selfishness and avarice.”

The ritual you choose need not be elaborate for it to have
a powerful impact. You can imbue your political street theater
with some of the power of ritual just by borrowing its rhythms.
Imagine two characters on the street: a military general and a
politician, slowly tossing a huge sack of money back and forth
across a wide expanse. In between, a regular Joe, sitting for-
lornly, watches the sack sail back and forth. Nearby, a spokesper-
son hands out a fact sheet that tells the rest of the story. Often
this kind of nonverbal, ritual-like performance, which repeats a
simple but visually arresting motion, can be more powerful and
effective than a full-length skit crammed with facts and figures.

198

PRINCIPLE: Use the power of ritual

“At its best , a ritual
is a cathartic ,
transformative
experience.”

Ghost Bike shrines — old
bikes whitewashed and decked
with flowers stationed as memo-
rials at urban crossroads where
cyclists have been killed — are
a haunting presence, protest
sculpture and fitting memorial
all rolled into one.

Because they are such well-worn forms, rituals are ripe for
mockery and comic adaptation, whether it’s the Billionaires
for Bush doing a vigil for corporate welfare, or Reverend Billy
brandishing a stuffed Mickey Mouse on a cross while doing
an exorcism inside the Times Square Disney Store. In 1967,
antiwar prankster Abbie Hoffman led 20,000 protesters in an
attempt to levitate the Pentagon — the National Guard was
under strict orders to never allow an unbroken chain of hands
around the building.

Our familiarity with ritual makes it a great format for self-
organizing. A ritual provides a natural script and symbolism.
Even complete strangers naturally fall into a rhythm around it.
This is even true for recently invented rituals such as monthly
Critical Mass bike rides or the yearly ritual of Buy Nothing
Day. In more repressive environments, the sacredness of a
ritual offers protection, or at least courage. Think of Catholic
Mass in Stalinist Poland or death squad-era El Salvador. In
the Iranian Revolution (of 1979, as well as the revolts in 2010),
the funerals of martyrs killed at the last protest fueled the
next round of protests in an accelerating cycle.

At its best, a ritual is a cathartic, transformative experi-
ence. At a bat mitzvah, a child crosses over into adulthood.
At a funeral, mourners grieve and find closure. A ritual har-
nessed to a political purpose should have an equally powerful
effect, whether it is recommitting to a cause, finding courage,
voicing dissent, or building trust.

TACTICS

Artistic vigil p. 10
Image theater p. 62
Guerrilla theater web
Distributed action p. 26
Trek p. 90

PRINCIPLES

Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Show, don't tell p. 174
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154
Consider your audience p. 118
Balance art and message p. 100
Anger works best when you have
the moral high ground p. 96
Don't dress like a protester p. 126

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Floating signifier p. 234
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

CASE STUDIES

Trail of Dreams p. 384
The salt march p. 354

PRINCIPLE: Use the power of ritual

se your radical fringe to shift
the Overton window

IN SUM

The Overton window is the
limit of what is considered
reasonable or acceptable
within a range of public policy
options. Slide the window of
acceptable debate by focusing
attention on a position that is
more radical than their own.

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men
Greenpeace
ACT UP
Occupy Wall Street
Paul Krassner
Voina

FURTHER INSIGHT

Jimmy McMillan of The Rent is Too
Damn High Party in action

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=x4o-TeMHysO&feature=related

Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals: a
practical primer for realistic radicals.

USA. Vintage Books, 1971.

Grist, “Occupy Wall Street can shake up
a city-but can it create lasting change?,"
Greg Hanscom, November 18, 2011

http://trb.la/xsK7HI

The Oberlin Review, “Wall Street
Demonstrators Challenge Centrist
Consensus,” Will Rubenstein,
November 20, 2011

http://trb.la/yOJKbU

CONTRIBUTED BY

Josh Bolotsky

The various policy options available on a given issue can be
roughly plotted on a spectrum of public acceptability, from
unthinkable, to fringe, to acceptable, to common sense, to
policy. The Overton window, named after Joseph Overton, a
staffer for the center-right Mackinac Center for Public Policy,
designates the range of points on the spectrum that are con-
sidered part of a “sensible” conversation within public opin-
ion and/or traditional mass media.

The most important thing about the Overton window,
however, is that it can be shifted to the left or the right, with
the once merely “acceptable” becoming “popular” or even im-
minent policy, and formerly “unthinkable” positions becom-
ing the open position of a partisan base. The challenge for
activists and advocates is to move the window in the direction
of their preferred outcomes, so their desired outcome moves
closer and closer to “common sense.”

There are two ways to do this: the long, hard way and the
short, easy way. The long, hard way is to continue making your
actual case persistently and persuasively until your position
becomes more politically mainstream, whether it be due to
the strength of your rhetoric or a long-term shift in societal
values. By contrast, the short, easy way is to amplify and echo
the voices of those who take a position a few notches more
radical than what you really want.

For example, if what you actually want is a public health
care option in the United States, coordinate with and pro-
mote those pushing for single-payer, universal health care.
If the single-payer approach constitutes the “acceptable left”
flank of the discourse, then the public option looks, by com-
parison, like the conservative option it was once considered
back when it was first proposed by Orrin Hatch in 1994.

This is Negotiating 101. Unfortunately, the right has been
far ahead of the left in moving the Overton window in their
desired direction for a long time. If anything, the left often
plays it in the exact wrong way, actively policing and seeking
to silence its radicals for fear that strong left positions will
serve to discredit moderate left positions. The irony is that the

PRINCIPLE: Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Escalate strategically p. 134
Reframe p. 168

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

THEORIES

Intellectuals and power p. 240
The propaganda model p. 2 56
Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

The Nihilist Democratic Party p. 342
Santa Claus army p. 358
Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal p. 318
Battle in Seattle p. 286

Jimmy McMillan, by running for governor of New York in 2010 on the “The Rent is Too Damn High" Party, effectively shifted
the Overton window leftwards, thereby making it easier for more moderate candidates to address economic inequality.

Overton window should actually be easier for progressives to
play: if you look at the polling on issue after issue, from educa-
tion to jobs to foreign policy, the actual majority stances tend
to be to the left of the range of policy proposals on offer.

POTENTIAL PITFALLS: Not all radical positions are effective in
shifting the Overton window, so don’t just reach for any old
radical idea. Ideally, the position you promote should carry
logical and moral force, and must include some common
ground with your own position — it needs to be along the
same continuum of belief if it is to be effective. It also must
not be so far out of the mainstream that it becomes toxic for
anyone vaguely associated with it, or the backlash will in fact
push the Window in the opposite of the desired direction.

PRINCIPLE: Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window

201

e are all leaders

IN SUM

An otherwise healthy distrust
of hierarchy can lead to a
negative attitude toward
all forms of leadership.
Actually, we want more
leadership, not less.

EPIGRAPH

"They surrounded the boat,
and when they lowered the
gangplank, Sheriff McGray
walked to the end of it and said,
‘Who are your leaders here?’
And they shouted back with
one voice: ‘We are all leaders
here!’ Well, that scared the tar
out of the law, you know...”

-Utah Phillips, “Fellow workers'' 1

PRACTITIONERS

Alliance of Community Trainers

FURTHER INSIGHT

Starhawk. The Empowerment Manual. A
Guide for Collaborative Groups.
Canada, New Society Publishers. 2011.

Lakey, Lakey, Napier and Robinson.
Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership.
A Guide for Organizations in Changing
Times. Philadephia, New Society, 1995.

Coover, Deacon, Esser, Moore.
Resource Manual for a Living Revolution.

Movement for a New Society.
Philadephia, New Society, 1978.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

“It is important
to distinguish
between horizontal
organization and
disorganization ”

What is the difference between saying “none of us is a lead-
er” and saying “we are all leaders”? At first glance these two
phrases may seem like two ways of saying the same thing,
which is essentially, “We believe
in organizing in a way that is
more horizontal than vertical.

We believe in equalizing par-
ticipation and resisting social
hierarchies.” But the word lead-
ership can mean a lot of things,
and not all involve the creation
of hierarchies. Taking leadership
can mean taking initiative on moving a project or task forward,
or taking responsibility for recognizing what is needed, and step-
ping up individually or collectively to do that thing.

It is important, in other words, to distinguish between hor-
izontal organization and disorganization, and to foster models
of dispersed leadership that promote responsibility, account-
ability and effectiveness.

This is not just a matter of semantics. If we are part of a
group that boasts of having no leaders, participants may be
overly hesitant about stepping up to take initiative for fear of
being seen as a “leader,” which would be a bad thing. If we re-
ally want to change the world, we need more people stepping
up to take initiative, not less. The more initiative we each take
in our work together, the greater our collective capacity will
be. Building our collective power is one of the most important
challenges of grassroots organizing.

We need to build a culture where we’re all invited to step
up. This means stepping up in ways that make space for oth-
ers to step up — where others feel invited to step up and take
initiative, too. “Stepping up” can mean actively listening to
and learning from others. It can mean taking time to rec-
ognize and value many different forms of leadership in the
group. And it can mean looking for and nurturing leadership
potential in others, who may not feel entitled to step forward
uninvited or unsupported.

A culture that values healthy leadership is one that also
prizes accountability, in which we are responsible for and ac-

PRINCIPLE: We are all leaders

countable to one another. But this focus on accountability
must go hand-in-hand with a group culture that values lead-
ership. Otherwise we may develop a “circular bring squad”
mentality in which we waste our energy cutting each other
down for taking initiative.

We need a movement where we are constantly encourag-
ing each other to step into our full potential and shine as a
collective of leaders working together for a better world. Let’s
all be leaders. Let’s be leaderful, not leaderless.

TACTICS

Distributed action p. 26
General strike p. 50

PRINCIPLES

Enable, don't command p. 132
Challenge patriarchy as
you organize p. 108
Beware the tyranny of
structurelessness p. 102
Delegate p. 122
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

THEORIES

Anti-oppression p. 212
Intellectuals and power p. 240
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web
Lysistrata project p. 330
Justice for Janitors p. 326

Occupy together.

1 Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco, 1999 Fellow Workers [Audio CD]. Righteous Babe records: Buffalo, NY.

PRINCIPLE: We are all leaders

203

;il>LE :

rite your own PRINCIPLE

IN SUM What’s the secret ?

EPIGRAPH

PRACTITIONERS

FURTHER INSIGHT

CONTRIBUTED BY

204

PRINCIPLE: Write your own PRINCIPLE

TACTICS

POTENTIAL PITFALLS:

THEORIES

CASES

The modular format of Beautiful Trouble allows the collection
to expand endlessly to reflect new tactical breakthroughs,
underrepresented areas of struggle and overlooked pearls
of wisdom.

Become part of Beautiful Trouble. Use this template to
write up your own creative-activism insights. Submit your own
module for publication on the Beautiful Trouble website here:

http://beautifultrouble.org.

PRINCIPLE: Write your own PRINCIPLE

205

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

Big-picture ideas that help us
understand how the world works and
how we might go about changing it

“Without revolutionary theory , there can be no revolutionary
movement, comrade

— VI. Lenin ( though he didn’t actually say the “comrade” part)

Ever wish someone would take the most complex
ideas from the likes of Brecht, Gramsci, Marx,
Foucault & Co. and cook them down into fierce,
accessible little nuggets of theory tailored to the
pragmatic needs of the working revolutionary?
Well, somebody did. Have at it.

ction logic

IN SUM

Your actions should speak for
themselves. They should make
immediate, natural sense to
onlookers. They should have an
obvious logic to the outside eye.

EPIGRAPH

“Actions speak louder
than words.”

-Ruckus Society motto

ORIGINS

Civil rights movement, USA

PRACTITIONERS

SNCC
Ruckus Society
Greenpeace

Design Studio for Social Intervention
Mitch Snyder

FURTHER INSIGHT

Canning, Doyle, and Patrick R einsborough.
Reilmagining Change: An Introduction to
Story-Based Strategy, smart Meme, 2009.

http://trb. la/zOcsIF

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd
Joshua Kahn Russell

Have you ever looked at a protest and wondered what the heck
these people were so angry about? Perhaps it was a bunch of
kids blockading an intersection. Who are they? What do
they want ?

With good action logic, nobody needs to ask those
questions; an outsider can look at what you’re doing and
immediately understand why you’re doing it. For example,
people doing a tree-sit so the forest cannot be cut down — the
logic is clear and obvious. The action speaks for itself.

Action logic creates powerful stories that move hearts and
change minds. Not only is it true that actions speak louder
than words, but, particularly in a hostile media climate where
activists are often flagrantly misrepresented, it’s important that
our actions speak for themselves. It may sound paradoxical,
but it often requires lots of thought and care to design actions
that make intuitive sense.

Civil disobedience actions — for example the lunch coun-
ter sit-ins of the American civil rights movement — tend to
have inherent action logic because their purpose is to violate
an unjust law in order to highlight exactly that injustice. How-
ever, other forms of direct action, which sometimes break laws
unrelated to their goal, often need to do some extra work to
achieve clear action logic.

Communicative actions See PRINCIPLE: Be both expressive

and instrumental also need to foster action logic. Camp Casey,
where Cindy Sheehan camped outside Bush’s vacation ranch
until he came out and explained for what “noble cause” her
Iraq veteran son Casey had died, had powerful action logic. So
did the single moms in Rhode Island who pressured a public
housing official for a daycare center by not just sitting-in at
his office, but bringing their kids with them and, for a few
hours, turning his office into the daycare center they needed
see CASE: Daycare sit-in.

Most successful actions have this kind of inherent, trans-
parent logic. They speak for themselves. When your action has
this kind of clarity at its core, then no matter how the target
responds or how things play out, the action will continue to
make your point and make sense to observers.

THEORY: Action logic

In a perfect demonstration of action logic, mixed-race students in Jackson, Mississippi sit in at a segregated lunch-
counter in 1960. Photo by Fred Blackwell. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14
Sit-in web

Mass street action p. 68
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Show, don't tell p. 174

The real action is your target’s reaction web

Think narratively p. 186

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 16 6

Choose your target wisely p. 114

THEORIES

Homo q & hamas p. 236
Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION: The lunch counter sit-ins during
the civil rights movement had remarkable action logic. When
legal segregation was enforced, black and white students
violated the law by sitting at lunch counters and waiting to
be served. Any outsider looking at the act immediately knew
why they were there. They didn’t need to carry signs. In fact,
their action foreshadowed victory and prefigured the world they
wanted to live in: they were living the integration they wanted.

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286
Tar Sands Action p. 376
Daycare center sit-in p. 316
Camp Casey web
Teddy bear catapult p. 380
Whose Tea Party? p. 392
The salt march p. 354
The Trail of Dreams p. 384
Citizen’s Posse p. 300

THEORY: Action logic

209

THEORY:

ienation effect

IN SUM

The alienation effect
was Brecht’s principle of using
innovative theatrical techniques
to “make the familiar strange”
in order to provoke a
social-critical audience response.

EPIGRAPH

“Sometimes it’s more
important to be human
than to have good taste.”

-Bertolt Brecht

ORIGINS

Bertolt Brecht, 1920-1930s Germany

PRACTITIONERS

Augusto Boat
Peter Schumann
Lars Von Trier
Allan Kaprow

FURTHER INSIGHT

Bertolt Brecht [Author], John Willett
[Translator), Brecht on theater: The
Development of an Aesthetic [New
York: Hill and Wang ; 13th edition, 1977)

L. M. Bogad, Tactical Performance: On
the Theory and Practice of Serious Play.
[forthcoming from NYU Press 2012).

CONTRIBUTED BY

L.M. Bogad

210

Bertolt Brecht, German leftist playwright and director, had
nothing but disdain for the conventional, commercial “bour-
geois” theater of his time. He considered it a “branch of the
narcotics business.” Why? The theater of his time, like most
Hollywood movies now, relied on emotional manipulation to
bring about a suspension of disbelief for the audience, along
with an emotional identification with the main character.
Audience members were taken on an uncritical emotional
roller coaster ride, crying when the main character cried,
laughing when s/he laughed — identifying with him/her
even when the character had nothing in common with them
or their interests (working-class audiences swooningly identi-
fying with a Prince of Denmark, for example) .

Bertolt Brecht developed a set of theatrical techniques to subvert the emotional manipulations of bourgeois theater.

Brecht saw that these audiences were manipulated by theater
technology — beautiful, realistic sets, cleverly naturalistic
lighting, the imaginary fourth wall, and most importantly,

THEORY: Alienation effect

emotionally effusive acting techniques, ffe soon watched with
horror as the Nazi movement gained popular support in his
country with its racist, xenophobic demagoguery, relying on
similar emotional manipulation. Emotional manipulation
was, to him, Enemy Number One of human decency.

It was in this context that Brecht developed his theory
of Verfremdungseffekt, also known as V-effekt, alienation
effect, or distantiation effect. (Important disclaimer: there
is compelling evidence that many of Brecht’s greatest
ideas were developed in uncredited cooperation with his
artistic partners).

The alienation effect attempts to combat emotional
manipulation in the theater, replacing it with an entertaining
or surprising jolt. For instance, rather than investing in or
“becoming” their characters, they might emotionally step
away and demonstrate them with cool, witty, and skillful
self-critique. The director could “break the fourth wall” and
expose the technology of the theater to the audience in amusing
ways. Or a technique known as the social gest could be used
to expose unjust social power relationships so the audience
sees these relationships in a new way. The social gest is an exag-
gerated gesture or action that is not to be taken literally but
which critically demonstrates a social relationship or power
imbalance. For example, workers in a corporate office may
suddenly and quickly drop to the floor and kowtow to the CEO,
or the women in a household may suddenly start to move in
fast-motion, cleaning the house, while the men slowly yawn
and loaf around.

By showing the instruments of theater and how they can
be manipulative — for example, the actor calling out “Cue the
angry red spotlight!” before he shrieks with rage, or “Time for
the gleeful violin” before dancing happily as the violinist joins
him on stage, or visibly dabbing water on his eyes when he is
supposed to cry . . . the audience can be entertained without
being manipulated. Many of Brecht’s techniques have been
co-opted and incorporated into contemporary bourgeois
theater and him, though his challenge remains relevant: how
to confront the problem of emotional manipulation while
creating a stimulating, surprising, entertaining, radically
critical, popularly appealing and accessible social art practice.

TACTICS

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Identity correction p. 60
Electoral guerrilla theater p. 40

PRINCIPLES

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Use the power of ritual p. 198
Reframe p. 168

Balance art and message p. 100

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Society of the Spectacle p. 266
Theater of the Oppressed p. 212
Capitalism p. 216

THEORY: Alienation effect

nti-oppression

IN SUM

Anti-oppression practice
provides a framework for
constructively addressing
and changing oppressive
dynamics as they play
out in our organizing.

EPIGRAPH

“If you have come to help me,
you are wasting your time. But
if you have come because your
liberation is bound up in mine,
then let us work together.”

-Lila Watson

ORIGINS

As long as there has been oppression,
people have been working to end it. In
recent decades, the Highlander Center
and the People’s Institute for Survival
and Beyond have worked to undo racism
and build collective liberation. After
Seattle, a whole new wave of work
began, deepening each year with new
collectives emerging and new practices
evolving. The work outlined here has been
learned over time from many teachers.

PRACTITIONERS

People's Institute for Survival and Beyond
Alliance of Community Trainers
No One is Illegal
People of Color Organize!
Rinku Sen & Applied Research Center
The Ruckus Society

CONTRIBUTED BY

Lisa Fithian
Dave Oswald Mitchell

Activist groups sometimes make the mistake of assuming that
oppression (the unjust exercise of power or authority) is only
what they do; that we are inherently anti-oppressive purely
because of our intention to do away with oppressive struc-
tures. Unfortunately the situation is much more complex,
and we ig-nore that complexity
at our peril.

We have been socialized in
cultures founded upon mul-
tiple, overlapping forms of
oppression, often leading us
to inadvertently perpetuate
dehumanizing behaviors, sit-
uations and structures. Our
oppressive actions diminish us,
divide us and inhibit our ability
to organize broad-based, eman-

“ Our oppressive
actions diminish
us, divide us and
inhibit our ability
to organize
broad-based,
emancipatory

apatory movements. mOVementS.”

In order to build a world free from domination, we offer up
for discussion the following tenets and practices in the hopes
they can provide a solid foundation for advancing our work and
deepening our interpersonal relationships.

Tenets

• Power and privilege can play out in our group dynamics
in destructive ways. For the good of all, we must chal-
lenge words and actions that marginalize, exclude or
dehumanize others.

• We can only identify the ways that power and privilege
play out when we are conscious and committed to un-
derstanding how white supremacy, patriarchy, classism,
heterosexism and other systems of oppression affect us all.

• Until we are clearly committed to anti-oppression prac-
tice, all forms of oppression will continue to divide and
weaken our movements.

• Developing anti-oppression practices is life-long work.

THEORY: Anti-oppression

No single workshop is sufficient for unlearning
our socialization within a culture built on multiple
forms of oppression.

Dialogue, discussion and reflection are some of the
tools through which we overcome oppressive atti-
tudes, behaviors and situations in our groups. Anti-
oppression work requires active listening, non-de-
fensiveness and respectful communication.

Personal practices

Challenge yourself to be courageously honest and
open, willing to take risks and make yourself vulner-
able in order to address racism, sexism, homophobia,
transphobia and other oppressive dynamics head-on.

When you witness, experience, or commit an abuse
of power or oppression, address it as proactively as the
situation permits, either one-on-one or with a few al-
lies, keeping in mind that the goal is to encourage
positive change.

Challenge the behavior, not the person. Be sensitive
and promote open dialogue.

When someone offers criticism in an oppressive
framework, treat it as a gift rather than an attack.
Give people the benefit of the doubt.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Colour of Resistance archive

http://www.coloursofresistance.org/

Applied Research Center,

“Toolbox for Racial Justice"

http://www.arc.org/content/

blogcategory/77/214/

Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege:
Unpacking the invisible knapsack"

http://trb.la/xtbAq G

Audre Lorde, “There Is No Hierarchy
of Oppressions"

http://trb.la/zBbOrc

bell hooks. Teaching to Transgress:
Education as the Practice of Freedom
[ New York, NY: Routledge, 1994)

Tim Wise, White Like Me: Reflections
on race from a privileged son.

[Berkeley, CA: Soft Skull Press, 2011)

Paul Kivel, Men’s Work: How to Stop
the Violence that Tears Our Lives Apart
[Center City, MN: Hazeldon Press, 1992)

Alliance of Community Trainers,
Anti-Oppression Resources:

http://organizingforpower.

wordpress.com/power/

anti-oppression-resources-exercises/

Global Exchange, Anti-Oppression Reader

http://www.seac.org/wp-content/

uploads/2011/07/AO_Reader_2007.pdf

Be willing to lose a friend, but try not to “throw away”
people who fuck up. Help them take responsibility
for making reparations for their behavior, and be
willing to extend forgiveness in return.

Take on the “grunt” work that often falls on women,
especially women of color. This includes the work of
cooking, cleaning, set up, clean up, phone calls, e-mail,
taking notes, doing support work, sending mailings.

Understand that you will feel discomfort as you face
your part in oppression, and realize that this is a neces-
sary part of the process. We must support each other
and be gentle with each other in this process.

TACTICS

Forum theater p. 48
Image theater p. 62

PRINCIPLES

Consensus is a means, not an end p. 116
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

Challenge patriarchy as you organize p. 108

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Take risks, but take care p. 182

We are all leaders web

Make new folks welcome p. 114

THEORY: Anti-oppression

THEORIES

Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246
Theater of the Oppressed p. 272
Environmental justice p. 228
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Intellectuals and power p. 240

• Don’t feel guilty, feel responsible. Being part of the prob-
lem doesn’t mean you can’t be an active part of the
solution.

• Contribute time and energy to building healthy relation-
ships, both personal and political.

Organizational practices

• Commit time to facilitated discussions on discrimina-
tion and oppression.

• Set anti-oppression goals and continually evaluate
whether or not you are meeting them.

• Create opportunities for people to develop anti-oppres-
sion skills and practices.

• Promote egalitarian group development by prioritizing
skill shares and an equitable division of roles, responsi-
bilities and recognition.

• Respect different styles of leadership and communication.

• Don’t push historically marginalized people to do things
because of their oppressed group (tokenism); base it on
their work, experience and skills.

• Make a collective commitment to hold everyone account-
able for their behavior so that the organization can be a
safe and nurturing place for all.

1 This article is adapted from “Anti-Oppression Principles & Practices” by Lisa Fithian, itself compiled
from the "Anti-Racism Principles and Practices” by Risellp DAN-LA, Overcoming Masculine Oppres-
sion by Bill Moyers and the FEMMAFESTO by a women’s affinity group in Philadelphia.

214

THEORY: Anti-oppression

TO LOVE.

.aavoa aa ot

TO NEVER FORGET YOUR OWN INSIGNIFICANCE.

aaaAXAaaaKU aHT ot aaau Tao aavavi ot
aaia ao ytiratzici raojtjv (iha aonaaoiv

■ UOY dVIUORA

TO SEEK JOY IN THE SADDEST PLACES.

.iiiAJ 2Ti ot YTUAaa augaua OT

TO NEVER SIMPLIFY WHAT IS COMPLICATED OR TO
COMPLICATE WHAT IS SIMPLE.

.aawoa aava vi t HTOviaRTa tohm ^i ot

o/je

TO WATCH.

.aviAT2Raanij oha yrt ot

TO NEVER LOOK AWAY

AND

NEVER,

TO FORGET.

-Arundhati Roy

THEORY:

apitalism

IN SUM

Capitalism is a
profit-driven economic
system rooted in
inequality, exploitation,
dispossession and
environmental destruction.

EPIGRAPH

“Capitalism turns men and
women into economic
cannibals, and having done
so, mistakes economic
cannibalism for human nature.”

-Edward Hyman

“Capitalists don’t control capital;
capital controls capitalists.”

-Unknown

ORIGINS

The transition to capitalism took
place in northwestern Europe
between the sixteenth and nineteenth
century, and expanded from this region
to the rest of the world through
colonialism and imperialism.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jeffery Webber

216

The cause of the economic crisis that began in 2008 is not
inadequate regulation of the free market, but runs far deeper.
The global slump we are living through is the predictable
manifestation of a crisis-prone economic system rooted in
production for profit rather than for human need. That
economic system is called capitalism, and for the sake of human
development and ecological sanity it needs to be overthrown.
But to be overthrown, it must first be understood.

Capitalism Works For Me! True/False. Original public art by Steve Lambert.

Capitalism is an economic system in which almost anything
we need or want must be bought on the market, and in which
most of us have nothing to sell but our labor. Capitalism is not
a thing, but a social relation between capital and labor that
divides humanity into two principal social classes: the capital-
ist class, or bourgeoisie, which owns the means of production
(tools, resources, land), and the working class, or proletariat,
which does not have access to the means of production and
therefore must sell its own labor power, or ability to work.

The laws of competition and profit-maximization govern
the capitalist market. Each enterprise exists alongside many
others that are all producing similar products or services.
Each needs to outperform the others, minimizing costs and
maximizing profit, or they will be driven into bankruptcy.

THEORY: Capitalism

“For the sake
of human
development and
ecological sanity,
capitalism needs to
be overthrown. But
to be overthrown,
it must first be
understood”

Technological innovation is one
way to cut costs. Compelling em-
ployees to work harder and
longer for less is another.

Capitalists’ drive to expand
propels economic growth, but
at a certain point, production
exceeds demand, and there are
too many factories and mills
producing the same thing for
every firm to be profitable.

This is the recurring crisis of
over-accumulation and profit-
ability into which capitalism
enters. While profits during
the expansive phase are privatized in the pockets of owners,
the costs of crisis are socialized through austerity measures,
unemployment, and poverty.

Capitalists are indifferent to the commodities they produce
so long as the need to generate profit is fulfilled see THEORY:
Commodity fetishism . Solar energy or tar sands oil, cluster bombs
or malaria medication, it does not matter what is produced or
what purpose it serves, so long as it is profitable. Capitalism in
this sense means production for exchange (profit) instead of
production for use (human need and ecological sustainability) .
The moral perversity of this dynamic is played out daily in an
economy that produces luxury cars and gourmet pet food for
a few, while allowing the reproduction of almost unthinkable
levels of global hunger and poverty, with more than one billion
people living on less that $1 per day, and another billion and
a half on under $2.

In sum, capitalism means waste, poverty, ecological deg-
radation, dispossession, inequality, exploitation, imperialism,
war and violence. We need to build mass movements to replace
it with an economic system based on production for human
need and ecological sustainability, with participatory and
democratic planning, worker and community self-management,
and international solidarity.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They
Don’t Tell You About Capitalism
[Bloomsbury Press, 2011).

Video: Crises of Capitalism
[animated lecture by David Harvey)

http://trb.la/xS91HD

David McNally, Another World is Pos-
sible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism,
[Winnipeg: ArbeiterRing Publishing, 2005)

Ellen M eiksins Wood, The Origin
of Capitalism: A Longer View
[London: Verso, 2002)

Selma James, Sex, Race and Class [197 5)

http://trb.la/xrfB7D

Naomi Klein, “Capitalism vs the
Climate," November 28, 2011

http://trb.la/xNKuPLe

TACTICS

General strike p. 50
Debt strike p. 24
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Debtors of the world, unite! p. 120
Challenge patriarchy as you organize p. 108

THEORIES

Commodity fetishism p. 218
Society of the spectacle p. 266
The shock doctrine p. 262
The commons p. 220
Debt revolt p. 226
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260
Points of intervention p. 250
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Environmental justice p. 228
Pillars of support p. 248

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286
Occupy Wall Street web
Modern Day Slavery Museum p. 338
Yomango p. 400

THEORY: Capitalism

THEORY:

ommodity fetishism

IN SUM

There is nothing natural or
inevitable about money, debt,
property rights, or markets;
they are symbolic systems
that derive their efficacy from
collective belief. Activists
should inspire radical hope
by exposing the mutability of
these social relationships.

ORIGINS

Karl Marx

PRACTITIONERS

UK Uncut
Reverend Billy and the
Church of Earthalujah
Situationists

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Onion, “U.S. Economy Grinds
to Halt as Nation Realizes Money Just a
Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion,"
February 16, 2010.

http://trb.la/x4SICw

CONTRIBUTED BY

Zack Malitz

218

“For Marx , the
important truths
of economics could
all be found in
the gritty process
of production , in
the places where
people actually
worked and lived.”

Commodity fetishism is the col-
lective belief that it is natural
and inevitable to measure the
value of useful things with
money. Marx coined the term to
mock political economists who
believed that carefully study-
ing economic systems would
eventually yield a set of natural
laws comparable to those
found in physics or chemistry.

In a regrettably racist out-
burst in Capital, Marx compared
the political economists of his
day to “primitive” people who

attributed magical powers to ordinary objects — stones, wood
carvings, weapons or, in the case of the economists, physical
currency. Their theories, Marx fumed, amounted to little more
than a superstitious belief that animal spirits lurked in com-
modities, and moved markets by magic.

Marx was convinced that most economists barely scratch the
surface of economic reality because they were entranced by its
elaborate symbolism: money, debt, property rights, prices and,
in our time, ever more complicated methods for computing
risk. For Marx, the important truths of economics could all
be found in the gritty process of production, in the places
where people actually worked and lived. From the roaring
machinery of the factory to the rat-infested hovels of the
urban proletariat, from the collapse of rural social life to the
actual distribution of natural resources, the most important
aspects of capitalist society were all traceable back to political
domination by a small class of property owners. What
really mattered about the economy, in Marx’s view, was that the
ruling class could rely on its military and police forces to
resolve conflicts over ownership with violence.

Marx’s point remains relevant. By the middle of the twen-
tieth century, orthodox economics had become a heavily
quantitative discipline that took pride in its alleged scientific
objectivity. At the heart of modern economics is the desire

THEORY: Commodity fetishism

Reverend Billy and The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir preach the repudiation of commodity fetishism.

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Eviction blockade p. 44
Debt strike p. 24

PRINCIPLES

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Debtors of the world, united! p. 120
Escalate strategically p. 134

THEORIES

Pillars of support p. 248
The commons p. 220
Capitalism p. 21 6
Society of the Spectacle p. 266
Points of intervention p. 250
Debt revolt p. 226

to devise models capable of making accurate predictions
about economic reality. Consequently, economists are still
dissecting the commodity market and studying it under a
microscope to discern its secrets. They tend to be skeptical
of collective decision-making and favorably disposed toward
markets because they mistakenly attribute agency to money
and markets, in effect believing that the market is moved by
mysterious forces that, whether they are natural laws or ani-
mal spirits, humans simply cannot control.

The challenge for anyone who wants to radically change
the world is to dispel the magical aura of the market and the
attendant myth of human impotence. Markets don’t have
power or agency, people do. Think of what happens during a
revolutionary general strike. People refuse to work or perform
even basic social rituals. The state dissolves overnight and,
for a miraculous instant, anything is possible. Banks could
be public property, roads could be pedestrian thoroughfares,
shopping districts could be spaces for political deliberation
and the government could really be for the people.

Anyone who asserts that there is something inevitable in the
historical process has not studied the subject. The beginning
of radical hope is the recognition that social relationships are
arbitrary and mutable — and need not be mediated through
monetary transactions.

CASE STUDIES

Reclaim the streets p. 35 0
Turning streets into gardens p. 368
The Battle in Seattle p. 286
Occupy Wall Street web

THEORY: Commodity fetishism

e commons

IN SUM

Our common wealth - the
shared bounty that we inherit
and create together - precedes
and surrounds our private
wealth. By building a system
that protects and expands our
common wealth rather than
one that exploits it, we can
address both our ecological
and social imbalances.

EPIGRAPH

“Even an entire society, a
nation, or all simultaneously
existing societies taken together,
are not the owners of the earth.
They are simply its possessors,
its beneficiaries, and have to
bequeath it in an improved
state to succeeding generations
as boni patres familias [good
heads of the household].”

-Karl Marx

“A twenty-first-
century commons
sector wouldn’t
replace the market
or the state , but
would rather serve
as a necessary

, balance to them.”

(music, art, science, open-

source software). All of these are gifts we share and are
obliged to preserve for others and for future generations.

The trouble is that, under capitalism, common wealth
is increasingly appropriated by private corporations and
wealthy individuals for profit. To counter this, we need to
expand and strengthen both the commons and the institu-
tions that sustain them.

Several doctrines flow from the idea of the commons:

In pre-capitalist times, shared
commons were the source of
sustenance for most people.
Though corporations have
enclosed and diminished
much of the commons, it lives
on in three portfolios: natu-
ral wealth (air, water, seeds,
ecosystems, other species); com-
munity wealth (streets, parks,
the Internet, money, social
insurance); and cultural wealth

Public trust doctrine: The state must act as the trustee
of common wealth for the benefit of all, or designate
accountable trustees.

ORIGINS

The concept of the commons dates back
to Roman times, with emperor Justinian
(530 AD] declaring, “By the law of nature
these things are common to mankind: the
air, running water, the sea, and conse-
quently the shores of the sea." The Magna
Carta (121 5] established forests and fish-
eries as commons open to all. John Locke
[1689] declared that private property is
appropriate only if “there is enough, and
as good, left in common for others."

We’re all in this together: The capitalist-era risks of unem-
ployment, disability, illness, climate change and unfunded
retirement are best shared collectively rather than borne
individually.

Polluter pays: Polluters should pay to dump wastes in shared
ecosystems.

Precautionary principle: Ecosystems should be managed for
long-term health, not short-term profit.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Peter Barnes

One person, one share: Rent from common assets belongs to
everyone equally.

THEORY: The commons

Usufruct: Our right to make use of a given resource is
contingent upon our responsibility to preserve and enrich
that resource for future generations.

It’s important to note that,
though the commons sector
needs state support (just as
the private sector does), it’s
not identical to the state. One
can imagine a vibrant com-
mons sector built around the
Internet and the airwaves;
trusts that protect key essen-
tial resources like clean air, water, forests and topsoil; universal
health care; dividends paid from common wealth to
everyone and local arts funds based on copyright fees. One
can also imagine fees on private transactions that profit from
the financial commons.

An important function of the commons sector would be
to charge corporations for costs (such as bank bailouts and
pollution) that they currently impose on the rest of us. If this
were done, businesses would speculate less and invest more in
clean technologies, and rent from commons use could provide
non-labor income to all.

In short, a twenty-first-century commons sector wouldn’t
replace the market or the state, but would rather serve as a
necessary balance to them. While such a sector won’t emerge
all at once, we can build it piece by piece over time.

Photo by twoblueday

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION: Parks and wilderness areas, the
Internet, Wikipedia, Social Security, the Alaska Permanent
Fund (pays equal dividends to all Alaskans with revenue from
oil leases).

MOST INFAMOUS BETRAYAL: Free gifts of air to polluters, money
to banks and airwaves to broadcasters.

PRACTITIONERS

Creative Commons
OnTheCommons
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Greenpeace

FURTHER INSIGHT

On the Commons, “All That We Share:

A Field Guide to the Commons"

http://onthecommons.org/

all-we-share-field-guide-commons

Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to
Reclaiming the Commons

www.capitalism3.com

David Bollier: News and
Perspectives on the Commons

www.bollier.org

The Commoner: A Web
Journal for Other Values

http://www.commoner.org.uk/

TACTICS

Occupation p. 78
Blockade p. 14

Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Capitalism p. 21 6
The shock doctrine p. 262
Temporary Autonomous Zone [TAZ] p. 270

CASE STUDIES

Reclaim the Streets p. 35 0
Small Gifts p. 360
Streets into gardens p. 368
The salt march p. 354

THEORY: The commons

THEORY:

ultural hegemony

IN SUM

Politics is not only
fought out in state houses,
workplaces or on
battlefields, but also in
the language we use, the
stories we tell, and the
images we conjure -
in short, in the ways we
make sense of the world.

EPIGRAPH

“The most obvious, important
realities are often the ones
that are hardest to see and talk
about. Stated as an English
sentence, of course, this is just
a banal platitude, but the fact is
that in the day to day trenches
of adult existence, banal
platitudes can have a life
or death importance.”

-David Foster Wallace

ORIGINS

Antonio Cramsci; further
developed by Stuart Hall

PRACTITIONERS

Guillermo Gomez-Peha
Guerrilla Girls

CONTRIBUTED BY

Stephen Duncombe

222

Cultural hegemony is a term
developed by Antonio Gramsci,
activist, theorist, and founder
of the Italian Communist party.
Writing while imprisoned in a
Fascist jail, Gramsci was con-
cerned with how power works:
how it is wielded by those in
power and how it is won by
those who want to change the
system. The dominant idea
at the time amongst Marxist
radicals like himself was that
in order to attain power you
needed to seize the means of production and administration —
that is, take over the factories and the state. But Gramsci
recognized that this was not sufficient. In his youth, he had
witnessed workers take over factories in Turin, only to hand
them back within weeks because they were unsure what to do
with the factories, or themselves. Gramsci had also observed
the skill of the Catholic Church in exercising its power and
retaining the population’s allegiance. Gramsci realized that in
order to create and maintain a new society, you also needed to
create and maintain a new consciousness.

The repository of consciousness is culture. This includes
both big-C Culture, culture in an aesthetic sense, and small-c
culture, culture in an anthropological sense: the norms and
mores and discourses that make up our everyday lives. Culture,
in this sense, is what allows us to navigate our world, guiding
our ideas of right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, just and
unjust, possible and impossible. You may be able to seize a
factory or storm a palace, but unless this material power is
backed up by a culture that reinforces the notion that what
you are doing is good and beautiful and just and possible,
then any gains on the economic, military and political fronts
are likely to be short-lived.

The power of cultural hegemony lies in its invisibility.
Unlike a soldier with a gun or a political system backed up by a
written constitution, culture resides within us. It doesn’t seem

Antonio Gramsci.

THEORY: Cultural hegemony

“political,” it’s just what we like,
or what we think is beautiful,
or what feels comfortable.

Wrapped in stories and images
and figures of speech, culture
is a politics that doesn’t look
like politics and is therefore
a lot harder to notice, much
less resist. When a culture
becomes hegemonic, it becomes
“common sense” for the majority
of the population.

No culture, however, is com-
pletely hegemonic. Even under
the most complete systems of
control, there are pockets
of what Gramsci, and later
Hall, called “counter-hege-
monic” cultures: ways of thinking and doing that have revo-
lutionary potential because they run counter to the dominant
power. For Gramsci, these cultures might be located in tradi-
tional peasant beliefs or the shop-floor culture of industrial
workers; for Hall they might be found in youth subcultures
like Rastafarians and punks, and even in commercial enter-
tainment. The activist’s job, according to Hall, is to identify and
exploit these cultural pockets, build a radical counter-culture
within the shell of the old society, and wage the struggle for a
new cultural hegemony.

An important caveat: Gramsci never believed that cultural
power alone was enough. The fight for cultural hegemony had
to be part of an overall strategy that also incorporated struggles
for political and economic power.

The power of
cultural hegemony
lies in its

invisibility. Unlike
a soldier with a
gun or a political
system backed
up by a written
constitution ,
culture resides
within us. ”

FURTHER INSIGHT

Gramsci, Antonio. The Antonio Gramsci
Reader: Selected Writings 1916-
1935. New York: NYU Press, 2000.

Morton, Adam. Unravelling
Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive
Revolution in the Global Economy.
London: Pluto Press, 2007.

TACTICS

Invisible theater p. 66
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
General strike p. 50
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Escalate strategically p. 134
Balance art and message p. 100
Seek common ground p. 170

THEORIES

Political identity paradox p. 254
Environmental justice p. 228
Pillars of support p. 248

CASE STUDIES

Wisconsin Capitol occupation p. 396
Occupy Wall Street web

THEORY: Cultural hegemony

223

THEORY:

Debt revolt

IN SUM

Today’s class consciousness
falls increasingly along debtor-
creditor lines rather than
worker-capitalist lines.

EPIGRAPH

“I ain’t a Communist
necessarily, but I been
in the red all my life.”

-Woody Guthrie

FURTHER INSIGHT

David Graeber. Debt: The First 5,000
Years. New York: Melville House, 2011.

Michael Hudson. “The New Road to
Serfdom: An Illustrated Guide to the
Coming Real Estate Collapse."
Harper's [May 2006).

CONTRIBUTED BY

Dmytri Kleiner

226

Many activist communiques employ the classical language
of class struggle. This language not only often fails to
engage, it may even alienate people who might otherwise be
sympathetic. The majority of people in the global north do not
identify as workers, and thus any appeal addressed to workers
is unlikely to achieve results in these societies. As the
industrial base of the economy has moved east and south,
the language of class politics in the global north has gotten
much murkier and more complicated. I propose that debt-
centered organizing offers
the potential to reinvigorate
radical struggle in the twenty-
first century.

The language of the labor
movement emerged in an era
when the power loom was
the driving force of industry,
nobility controlled the land
and the state, and being a
worker in early industry was
torturous and inhumane. Most
working people were direct producers. Today, most people
in developed nations are non-direct producers, working in
customer service, finance, and other administrative or
technical fields. They are, therefore, no longer direct wit-
nesses to the fruits of their labor being stolen from them and
hoarded by capitalists, but rather are divided and subdivided
in increasingly insidious ways.

People today don’t conceive of the “product of their labor”
as the actual goods sold by their employers; in their minds,
the product of their labor is their paycheck. That is what they
produce, that is what is taken from their hands, not by their
boss, but by their bills, their debts, their taxes. This is one reason
the right has been so successful at channelling populist
rage away from big business and toward big government.

Two decades of easy credit and bubble economics have
left most people deeply in debt, often as a result of having
to pay for essentials like education, childcare, housing and
health care. This is a real opportunity for activists to make

“People are broke
because the system
is broken. We have
no moral obligation
to keep paying
into a system that
is not working

THEORY: Debt revolt

TACTICS

Debt strike p. 24
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Eviction-blocking p. 44

PRINCIPLES

Debtors of the world, unite! p. 120
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

THEORIES

Capitalism p. 216
Commodity fetishism p. 218
Points of intervention p. 250
The commons p. 220

the case that capitalism simply can’t provide essential goods
fairly and efficiently, that their debts are unjust and were
forced on to them. People are broke because the system
is broken. We have no moral obligation to keep paying into a
system that is not working.

The labor movement transformed the working conditions
in developed nations and built the welfare state, and did
so by championing the demands of the organized working
class. Today, we have a debtors’ consciousness, united by
financial stress and economic precarity, with debt its measure.

Realizing our collective power to withdraw our willingness
to pay debts see: TACTIC: Debt strike is potentially as system-
shaking today as the power of the industrial working class to
withdrawitslaborpoweracenturyago.Debtisaunitingcondition
that can mobilize the masses to fight for change.

The debtors of the world have nothing to lose but their
chains. Debtors of the world, unite!

THEORY: Debt revolt

THEORY:

Environmental justice

IN SUM

By exposing the connections
between social justice and envi-
ronmental issues we can most
effectively challenge abuses of
power that disproportionately
target indigenous and other
economically and politically
disenfranchised communities.

EPIGRAPH

“As a black person in America I
am twice as likely to live in an
area where air pollution poses
the greatest risk to my health. I
am five times more likely to live
within walking distance of a
power plant or chemical facility,
which I do. Fortunately there
are people like me who are
fighting for solutions that won’t
compromise the lives of low-
income communities of color
in the short term - and won’t
destroy us all in the long term.”

-M ajora Carter

ORIGINS

Hazel Johnson, Dr. Benjamin Chavis,
Charles Lee, Robert D. Bullard, the self-
organization of impacted communities.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Margaret Campbell

228

In the United States today, race and class composition are the
most reliable indicators of where the wastes that industrial
society creates are dumped. Invariably, they have been shown to
accumulate in and around poor and racialized communities.
Environmental racism refers to this tendency to burden margin-
alized groups with environmental problems. The movement
for environmental justice is the organized response, seeking
to redress the inequitable
distribution of waste through
both community develop-
ment (greening) and political
empowerment (petitioning for
development and enforcement
of environmental law and poli-
cies) in poor communities and
communities of color.

After four little girls in from
the South Side Chicago Altgeld
Gardens housing community
died from cancer in the early
1980s, Hazel Johnson, long-
time resident and founder of
People for Community Recov-
ery, put two and two together:
their 190-acre community was
home to over fifty documented
landfills, and also to the high-
est incidence of cancer in the city. Her organization went on
to win many grassroots struggles for environmental justice
on behalf of their predominantly poor, predominantly black
community, and then began networking with other organiza-
tions across the country. By the mid 1990s, the environmental
justice movement had made significant strides in publicizing
such issues, with organizations such as the United Church of
Christ Commission for Racial Justice staging numerous acts
of civil disobedience.

Globally, powerful corporations have been able to spread
the practice of exploiting politically vulnerable communities.
As Lawrence Summers, Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton

“What is at work
here is not only
racism, but a
widespread and
devastating ethic
that withholds
compassion from
the environment,
and denies the
humanity of ninety-
nine percent of the
world’s people.”

THEORY: Environmental justice

The fight for environmental justice is a fight for your life. Image by Wake Forest University.

and director of the National Economic Council under Obama,
argued in a 1991 memo while employed at the World Bank,
“the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in
the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up
to that. . . I’ve always thought that underpopulated countries
in Africa are vastly underpolluted.” A Summers aide later
claimed that the memo was intended sarcastically. Sarcasm or
no, the statement accurately reflects the way waste is handled
under capitalism.

What is at work here is not only racism, but a widespread
and devastating ethic that withholds compassion from the
environment and denies the humanity of ninety-nine percent
of the world’s people, treating them as resources to be exploited
at best, or as entirely external to the economic calculations
at worst.

It is not by chance that the civil rights movement sparked a
process that, in recent decades, has culminated in a veritable
explosion of environmental activism. It is because of the
insidious form that racism takes under the geographical
development of capitalism that an utterly unsustainable way
of life was allowed to evolve to the point of global climate
catastrophe. Only by confronting as one the environmental
and social manifestations of the crisis can we hope to replace
this system with something more equitable for all.

PRACTITIONERS

Majora Carter - Sustainable South Bronx

Van Jones

Vandana Shiva

Winona LaDuke

Tar Sands Action

Indigenous Environmental Network

FURTHER INSIGHT

Dana Alston, We Speak for Ourselves:
Social Justice, Race and the Environment.
Washington, DC: Panos Institute, 1990.

TED, “Majora Carter: Greening the Ghetto"

http://trb.la/xDM62l

Video: Democracy Now interview with
Mohawk youth activist Jessica Yee

http://trb.la/xXZqXJ

The United Church of Christ
Commission for Racial Justice,

“Almost Everything You Need to Know
About Environmental Justice"

http://trb.la/z80clr

TACTICS

Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Trek p. 90

Identity correction p. 60
Blockade p. 14
Direct action p. 32
Eviction blockade p. 44

PRINCIPLES

Turn the tables p. 190

Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196

Bring the issue home p. 106

Challenge patriarchy as you organize p. 108

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Cultural hegemony p. 222
The shock doctrine p. 262
The commons p. 220

CASE STUDIES

Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal p.318

THEORY: Environmental justice

229

THEORY:

spectacle

IN SUM

To be politically effective,
activists need to engage
in spectacle. By keeping
to certain principles,
our spectacles can be
ethical, emancipatory, and
faithful to reality.

EPIGRAPH

“Boredom is always
counter-revolutionary. Always.”

-Guy Debord

ORIGINS

Andrew Boyd
Stephen Duncombe

PRACTITIONERS

The Situationists
Abbie Hoffman/Yippies
The Zapatistas
Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
Yes Men
Greenpeace
Billionaires for Bush
Deconstructionist
Institute for Surreal Topology
Iraq Veterans Against the \Nar

FURTHER INSIGHT

Duncombe, Stephen. Dream: Re-lmag-
ining Progressive Politics in an Age of
Fantasy. New York: New Press, 2007.

Boyd, Andrew, and Stephen Duncombe.
“The Manufacture of Dissent: What the
Left Can Learn from Las Vegas." Journal
of Aesthetics and Protest 1 , no. 3 (2004).

The concept of ethical spectacle
offers a way of thinking about
the tactical and strategic use
of signs, symbols, myths, and
fantasies to advance progres-
sive, democratic goals. First
introduced in a 2004 article
by Andrew Boyd and Stephen
Duncombe and later ex-
panded in Duncombe’s 2007
book Dream, the theory’s
premises are: (1) that politics
is as much an affair of desire
and fantasy as it is reason and
rationality, (2) that we live in an intensely mediated age (what
Situationist Guy Debord called the Society of the Spectacle), (3)
that in order to be politically effective, activists need to enter the
realmww of spectacle, and (4) that spectacular interventions
have the potential to be both ethical and emancipatory.

An ethical spectacle is a symbolic action that seeks to shift
the political culture toward more progressive values. An ethi-
cal spectacle should strive to be:

Participatory: Seeking to empower participants and specta-
tors alike, with organizers acting as facilitators.

Open: Responsive and adaptive to shifting contexts and the
ideas of participants.

Transparent: Engaging the imagination of spectators with
out seeking to trick or deceive.

Realistic: Using fantasy to illuminate and dramatize real-
world power dynamics and social relations that otherwise
tend to remain hidden in plain sight.

This mashup of two iconic images captures the ten-
sions and contradictions of the ethical spectacle.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Stephen Duncombe

Utopian: Celebrating the impossible — and therefore
helping to make the impossible possible.

230

THEORY: Ethical Spectacle

TACTICS

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Flash mob p. 46

PRINCIPLES

Be an ethical prankster web
Make the invisible visible p. 152

THEORIES

Society of the Spectacle p. 266

Be both expressive and instrumental p. 232

CASE STUDIES

Santa Claus army p. 35 8

The Big Donor Show p. 294

Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal p. 318

The Yippies used the symbolic power of flowers in this emancipatory spectacle. Flower Power, 1967, The Washington
Evening Star photo by Bernie Boston.

Progressives tend to distrust anything that smacks of pro-
paganda or marketing — that’s what the other side does. We
tend to believe that proclaiming the naked Truth is enough:
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” But
waiting for the truth to set us free is lazy politics. The truth
does not reveal itself by virtue of being the truth: it must be
told, and told well. It must have stories woven around it, works
of art made about it; it must be communicated in new and
compelling ways that can be passed from person to person,
even if this requires flights of fancy and new mythologies. The
argument here is not for a progressive movement that deceives
or cheapens its message but rather for a propaganda of the
truth. This is the work of ethical spectacle.

231

THEORY: Ethical Spectacle

THEORY:

Expressive & instrumental actions

IN SUM

Political action tends
to be driven by one of two
different motivations:
expressing an identity, and
winning concrete changes.
It’s important to know the
difference, and to strike
a balance between the two.

EPIGRAPH

“If the real radical finds that
having long hair sets up
psychological barriers
to communication and orga-
nization, he cuts his hair.”

-Saul Alinsky

ORIGINS

Resource Mobilization Theory
of the 1970's-Present

PRACTITIONERS

Otpor

The orange alternative
Gran Fury

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Deconstructionist Institute
of Surrealist Topology
Lesbian Avengers
The Zapatista Army of Na-
tional Liberation [EZLN]

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker
Joshua Kahn Russell
Zack Malitz

Sometimes activists will take an action without much thought to
how others receive it, or what precisely the action will achieve.
Many people participate in actions because it’s meaningful
to them, or simply because it feels good to do the right thing.
We call this the expressive part of an action. Expressive actions
come from the heart and the gut — whether or not our “heads”
calculate the specific outcome.

“Taking the street” during a march is a perfect example.
Sure, it feels good to march un-permitted in the street. You and
your comrades bravely disobey police orders and, all together,
walk out into traffic. You can practically smell the group cohe-
sion in the air. It’s intoxicating. It’s also usually inconsequential
in terms of broader social movement objectives. Still, how
many times have you heard someone say a march was “bad”
simply because it stayed on the sidewalk? When someone says
this, it may be because their goals are primarily expressive;
affecting social change is of secondary importance.

Most trained organizers think on another level: regardless
of the self-expressive value for those involved, we ask “what is
this action actually achieving for our issue, cause, movement,
or campaign?” We call this the instrumental value of an action.

Both aspects are important, and though a well designed
action can deliver on both simultaneously, expressive and
instrumental often get pitted against one another. Many
hard-nosed organizers focus exclusively on tangible impacts,
forgetting that the self-expressive dimension of an action plays
a critical role in affirming values and building group identity.
On the other hand, many groups can carry out a whole string
of expressive actions without ever winning anything The danger
here is clear: groups that don’t evaluate the success of their
tactics in terms of their instrumental goals risk becoming nar-
cissistic and self-referential. They can spiral into irrelevance
because they aren’t tuned into how their action effects anyone
outside of the group see PRINCIPLE: No one wants to watch a
drum circle.

While instrumental actions are often focused on an
“external” outcome, say, some measurable kind of pressure you
can exert on the bad guy your campaign is targeting, they can
also have an “internal” focus. Consider a mass teach-in that

232

THEORY: Expressive & instrumental actions

is designed to build your organization’s capacity, or increase
the skills of participants, or shift the thinking in your move-
ment. Here, the expressive value of the action is being directly
translated into an instrumental outcome. Expressive and
instrumental are therefore not mutually exclusive categories,

Reflective wolves consider instrumental impacts. (Image by Joshua Kahn Russell and Beatriz Carmen Mendoza,
inspired by a cartoon by S. Gross. Originally printed in Organizing Cools the Planet (PM Press, 2011)).

TACTICS

Blockade p. 14
Direct action p. 32
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Banner hang p. 12
General strike p. 50
Guerrilla projection p. 52
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Occupation p. 78

PRINCIPLES

Make your actions both

concrete and communicative p. 1 54

No one wants to watch a drum circle p. 156

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

Choose tactics that support

your strategy p. 112

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Use your radical fringe to shift

the Overton window p. 200

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Escalate strategically p. 134

THEORIES

Political identity paradox p. 254
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Pillars of support p. 248

but rather dynamics to which we need to pay attention.

Instrumental actions can be further subdivided into
“communicative” and “concrete” see PRINCIPLE: Make your
actions both concrete and communicative. Communicative actions
are designed to sway opinion, express an idea, or contribute
to public discourse, while concrete actions are designed to have
a tangible impact on a target. These are two separate ways of
measuring an instrumental outcome.

While self-expression is a necessary part of the social change
process, it is not sufficient. Through our rituals of self-expres-
sion, we affirm our values and visions and build the kind of
group identity and cohesion without which we’d be too weak and
disorganized to change the world see THEORY: Political identity
paradox. That said, expressing values is not the same as engaging society
and affecting systemic change. If we really want to change the world,
we must know the difference between — and artfully balance —
our instrumental goals with our desire for self-expression.

CASE STUDIES

Taco bell boycott p. 372
Reclaim the streets p. 35 0
Battle in Seattle p. 286
Harry Potter Alliance p. 322
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel
Clown Army p. 304

THEORY: Expressive & instrumental actions

233

THEORY:

Floating signifier

IN SUM

An empty or “floating”
signifier is a symbol or concept
loose enough to mean many
things to many people, yet
specific enough to galvanize
action in a particular direction.

EPIGRAPH

“We are.. .the face that
hides itself to be seen.”

-Subcomandante Marcos

“We are the ones we’ve
been waiting for.”

-Barack Obama

“We are the 99 percent.”

-Occupy Wall Street

ORIGINS

Coined by Claude Levi-Strauss;
elaborated by Roland Barthes, Stuart
Hall, Ernesto Laclau, and others.

PRACTITIONERS

The Zapatista Army of
National Liberation (EZLN)
Occupy Wall Street

FURTHER INSIGHT

Subcommandante Marcos, Our Word is
Our Weapon: Selected Writings. (New
York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2002)

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker
Andrew Boyd
Dave Oswald Mitchell

234

The American flag inspires extreme passions . . . but what
exactly does it stand for? To different people it means freedom,
justice, imperialism and terror — its meaning shifts wildly
depending on context and observer. This emptiness, into which
observers can pour almost any meaning or desire, is a large
part of the symbol’s power.

For activists, a well-crafted floating signifier can be a pow-
erful tool for catalyzing broad-based action. Subcommandan-
te Marcos and the Zapatistas,
for example, deployed the con-
cept of the floating signifier
masterfully. Marcos described
the masks the Zapatistas wore
as a mirror in which all who
struggle for a better world can
see themselves. The Zapatistas’
iconic black balaclava was not
just a necessity for personal
security, but became a powerful
statement of unity and univer-
sality. “Behind our black mask,”
they declared, “we are you.” 1

In 2008, presidential candi-
date Barack Obama also made
masterful use of floating sig-
nihers. His poetic rhetoric of
“hope” and “change we can
believe in” inspired a popula-
tion weary from eight years of misrule. He became whatever his
supporters wanted him to be. Obama explicitly acknowledged
this phenomenon in the prologue to his campaign screed, The
Audacity of Hope : “I serve as a blank screen on which people of
vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

Finding the right floating signifier can make or break
a social movement or campaign. When a challenger social
movement hits upon such a catalyzing symbol, it’s like striking
gold. One might even argue that broad social movements are
constituted in the act of finding their floating signifier. Hither-
to disparate groups suddenly congeal into a powerful aligned

What do Guy Fawkes, the “hope" campaign poster
and the 99% have in common? They can be used in-
dividually, or together (as in this image], as floating
signifiers to unite campaigns and movements. Original
design by Shepard Fairey.

THEORY: Floating signifier

force. Momentum is on their side, and things that seemed
impossible only yesterday become visible on the horizon.

Indeed, the power of a good floating signiher was perhaps
nowhere more evident than in the overnight growth of Occupy
Wall Street see case. Far eclipsing the literal physical occupation
in Zucotti Park, OWS resonated so far and wide because it
served as a symbol about standing up to powerful elites on
their own doorstep. To many people, the “occupy” in “Occupy
Wall Street” essentially stands in for the F word. Millions of
Americans were waiting for someone or something to stand
up to Wall Street, the big banks, the mega-corporations, and
the political elite. Then one day, a relatively small crew of
audacious and persistent New
Yorkers became that someone
or something — became the
catalyzing symbol of defiance
we’d been waiting for. And by
having an open process, and
not fixing its meaning early
with a ten-point program or
the like, the symbol was able to
continue “floating.”

It’s not that the symbol is
“occupy” and “the 99 %” carry content that strategically frames
public thinking and pulls the political discourse in a clear
direction. But a degree of ambiguity is absolutely necessary if
such a symbol is to catalyze a broad alignment. If the symbol’s
meaning becomes too particular — too associated with any
one current or group within the alignment — it risks losing
its powerfully broad appeal. This is why the forces defending
the status quo try to nail it down. Their hope is that by fixing
it to particular meanings, associating it with particular “kinds
of people” and to narrower frameworks, it will no longer func-
tion as a popular symbol.

Float on, beautiful signiher. Float on.

“Finding the
right floating
signifier can
make or
break a social
movement ”

empty of meaning. Both

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Identity correction p. 60
Media-jacking p. 72

PRINCIPLES

Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Consider your audience p. 118
Reframe p. 168
Think narratively p. 186
Brand or be branded p. 104
Seek common ground p. 170

THEORIES

Memes p. 242

Ethical spectacle p. 230

The tactics of everyday life p. 244

Hashtag politics p. 238

Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web
Reclaim the Streets p. 350
99% bat signal p. 278
Yomango p. 400

1 Remarks of the General Command of the EZLN, opening ceremony of the First Intercontinental Meeting
For Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.

2 This article incorporates passages from a blog post by Jonathan Matthew Smucker, “The tactic of occupa-
tion and the movement of the 99%.”

THEORY: Floating signifier

235

THEORY:

Hamoq & hamas

IN SUM

Turning anger into action
is necessary to move the
powers that be, but that anger
is most effective when it is
disciplined and intelligently
focused (hamas). Uncontrolled,
stupid anger (hamoq) mostly
undermines your own cause.

ORIGINS

Hamza Yusuf, 2000s

PRACTITIONERS

Tutte Bianche
Ruckus Society
Environmental Defense Fund
Egyptian Revolution

FURTHER INSIGHT

This article was adapted from The
Guardian, “Raising the Temperature:
Corporate Power Will Not Be Given
Up Voluntarily-Non-Violent Mass
Action Is Needed,"July 24, 2001.

CONTRIBUTED BY

George Monbiot

236

The great Islamic activist
Hamza Yusuf Hanson distin-
guishes between two forms of
political action. He defines
the Arabic word hamas as
enthusiastic, but intelligent,
anger. Hamoq means uncon-
trolled, stupid anger.

The Malays could not
pronounce the Arabic H,
and the British acquired the
second word from them. On
the streets of Genoa during
the 2001 G8 summit, while the white overalls movement
practiced hamas, seeking to rip down the fences around
Genoa’s red zone but refusing to return the blows of the
police, the black block ran amok.

The important thing about hamas is that, whether
or not it is popular, it is comprehensible. People can see
immediately what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Hamoq, by contrast, leaves its spectators dumbfounded.
Hamas may have demolished the McDonald’s in Whitehall
on May Day 2000, but it would have left the Portuguese
restaurant and the souvenir shop beside it intact.

Hamas explains itself. It is a demonstration in both
senses of the word: a protest and an exposition of the rea-
sons for that protest. Hamoq, by contrast, seeks no public
dialogue. Hamas is radical. Hamoq is reactionary.

If, like some of the black bloc warriors I have spoken to,
you cannot accept this distinction, then look at how the police
responded to these two very different species of anger.

On Friday, though they were armed to the teeth and
greatly outnumbered the looters, the police stood by and
watched as the black bloc rampaged around Brignole station,
smashing every shopfront and overturning the residents’
cars. Then, on Saturday night, on the pretext of looking
for the people who had caused the violence, the police
raided the schools in which members of the nonviolent
Genoa Social Forum were sleeping, and started beating

THEORY: Debt revolt

them to a pulp before they
could get out of their sleeping
bags. The police, like almost
everyone else in Genoa, knew
perfectly well that the black
bloc were, at the time, camped
in a car park miles away.

It is not hard to see which
faction Italy’s borderline-
fascist state felt threatened
by, and which faction it could
accept and even encourage.

If Carlo Giuliani did not
die in vain, it was because
the Genoa Social Forum had
so clearly articulated the case

he may have been seeking to make. His hamoq forced a
response because other people were practicing hamas.

Hamas instructs us to choose our enemies carefully.
Indeed, when actions are clearly focused, then violence
toward human beings is far less likely to take place, as it’s
harder to forget what we are seeking to achieve.

“Hamas explains
itself. It is a
demonstration in
both senses of the
word: a protest
and an exposition of
the reasons for that
protest Hamoq, by
contrast, seeks no
public dialogue ”

TACTICS

Strategic nonviolence p. 32
Mass street action p. 14
Prefigurative intervention web
Direct action p. 68

PRINCIPLES

Escalate strategically p. 174

The real action is your target's reaction web

Don't confuse your stratgy

and your tactic p. 186

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 152

Anger only works when you

have the high moral ground web

Maintain nonviolent discipline web

Kill them with kindness p. 114

THEORIES

Revolutionary nonviolence p. 236
Action logic p. 250
Pillars of support p. 244
The tactic s of everyday life

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION: Tahrir Square and the U.S. civil
rights movement.

THEORY: Debt revolt

237

THEORY:

Hashtag politics

IN SUM

Your action or campaign
doesn’t just send a message, it
convenes a conversation.

By strategically defining
the hashtag and curating
the ensuing conversation,
you can expand and deepen
your support base.

PRACTITIONERS

UK Uncut
Adbusters
The Yes Men
The Tea Party

FURTHER INSIGHT

Russia Today, “Censored: ftoccupy-
wallstreet,” November 18, 2011.

http://rt.com/news/

twitter-ows-protest-censorship-653/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Duncan M eisel

238

Hashtags are powerful tools for convening a conversation
around a strategically chosen subject. In many cases,
the hashtag is a person, place, or other concrete noun.

Our contemporary media environment encourages absolutely
everyone to participate in conversations about current events.
This means your action won’t just send a message, but through
social media like Twitter and Facebook, it will also convene a
conversation. With hundreds of millions of people around the
world participating in social networks, it’s become passe to try
to “be the media.” Increasingly, activist storytelling strategies
are designed to convene the conversation by practicing what
one might call hashtag politics.

To explain the term: the
users of the microblogging social
network Twitter established a
convention for organizing ideas,
using a label called a hashtag.

Twitter hashtags combine a
“#” symbol and a keyword that
connect posts from different
authors (e.g., #noKXL for
discussion about the Keystone XL pipeline, #OWS for Occupy
Wall Street) . Posts that share a hashtag can be viewed together
in a single place, facilitating an ongoing public conversation.

Like a frame, a hashtag organizes and amplifies attention.
Twitter hashtags are the most literal manifestation of a broader
tendency of our highly connected, socially mediated environment
toward greater interactivity. Each social media network has
its own method for organizing conversations, from YouTube
video replies, to Facebook’s friends talking about feature, to
simple blog comments. The tendency is also manifested in
cable network talk shows, which are nothing more than debates
about current events, now more than ever supplemented with
comments harvested from social media.

Typically, the hashtag that organizes a conversation is a
highly polarizing proper noun that inspires people to pick a
position in a discussion about it. For instance, in 2011, UK
Uncut organizers started staging protests at Vodafone stores,
organizing under the hashtag #UKUncut, to reframe the dis-
cussion about austerity to focus on corporate tax dodgers rather
than public spending. The role of the organizer practicing
hashtag politics is to polarize a discussion effectively, and then

THEORY: Hashtag politics

curate the conversation to make your side more compelling.

The hashtag is a framing device that helps define the values
associated with a particular political position. To effectively
practice hashtag politics, it’s important to strategically and
proactively define the hashtag you wish to organize the con-
versation around. If your hashtag is well chosen, you will draw
more people to your side of the debate.

A hashtag could be any number of things. Using narrative
power analysis as one guide, you could choose to polarize a dis-
cussion around a character in your story — either a sympathetic
character or a villain — or perhaps a scene of conflict that locates
the problem we must face (like Wall Street, or the tar sands).

In an increasingly socially mediated world, to craft a
winning frame, it’s critical to convene and curate an effective
conversation that centers on a strategically chosen subject.

TACTICS

Media-jacking p. 72
Flash mob p. 46
Human banner p. 56
Distributed action p. 26

PRINCIPLES

Reframe p. 168

Brand or be branded p. 104

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Stay on message p. 178

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Consider your audience p. 118

Think narratively p. 1 86

Balance art and message p. 100

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244
The propaganda model p. 256
Memes p. 242
Floating signifier p. 234

CASE STUDIES

Tar sands action p. 376
Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 396
Occupy Wall St. web
Camp Casey web

THEORY: Hashtag politics

239

THEORY:

Intellectuals and power

IN SUM

Intellectuals should use their
specialized knowledge to
expose the machinations
of power, utilize their posi-
tion in institutions to amplify
the voices of people strug-
gling against oppression,
and work tirelessly to reveal
the ways that they them-
selves are agents of power.

ORIGINS

Michel Foucault [1926-1984]

PRACTITIONERS

Michel Foucault
Arundhati Roy
Antonio Gramsci
Noam Chomsky
Vandana Shiva
James Hansen
Ricardo Dominguez
Suzanne Lacy

CONTRIBUTED BY

Zack Malitz

240

Michel Foucault was a French historian, social theorist and
philosopher whose writings about power have had a profound
impact on the humanities and the social sciences. The
basic premise of Foucault’s work is that power today is
not something that a small number of people possess and
exert on everybody else, but rather a force that acts through
every institution and relationship in society, so that our very
sense of self is a product of its shaping force.

Power, according to Foucault, is diffuse, decentralized and
emanates from every corner of society, notjust the official seats
of government. Resistance, too, is everywhere. Everywhere
that people refuse to cooperate with institutional authority or
to uncritically accept established patterns of social behavior,
every time they attempt to re-organize social relationships
according to different principles or rhythms, they resist power.

People can only resist what
they can see, however, so power
is most effective when it remains
invisible. People perceive power
dynamics as immutable facts of
life rather than as a historical
situation that could be renegoti-
ated. For this reason, intellectu-
als, engaged in the production
of knowledge, particularly
social scientific knowledge,
are inextricably linked to the
operation of power — but also,
potentially, to its resistance. Foucou)t , bQSjc premise (apparently qmte djscon .

Intellectuals, as Foucault certi "9 t0 his “ ud ' en “ p‘ ctured here l is that p° wer ls

a force that acts through every institution and rela-

uses the term, are people who tionship in society, so that our very sense of self is a
supply other people with praduc,ofi!sshapi " 9,ora -

mental frames for understanding, interpreting and inter-
acting with the world. Scientists and engineers who work
for big tech companies are intellectuals, as are freelance
software developers, amateur bloggers, professors and
school teachers, doctors, lawyers, advertisers and bureaucrats
of every stripe.

For Foucault, the proper role of an intellectual is to

THEORY: Intellectuals and power

“People who face
the business end
of domination and
exploitation don’t
need intellectuals
to tell them that
they are oppressed
- they know
perfectly well.”

of institutional power.

Intellectuals act as agents of social change when they
translate expert discourses such as law or economics into
accessible language. Intellectuals, for Foucault, are at their
best when, rather than telling us how the world should be,
they show us that it could easily have been otherwise and,
more importantly, that it need not remain the same.

expose the machinations of
power and the systems of know-
ledge that justify, naturalize
or conceal the operations of
power. People who face the
business end of domination
and exploitation don’t need
intellectuals to tell them that
they are oppressed — they know
perfectly well. What they
need from intellectuals is
not leadership, but resources,
technical knowledge and assis-
tance in navigating dense webs

PRINCIPLES

Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Make the invisible visible p. 15 2
Show, don't tell p. 174
Team up with experts p. 184

THEORY: Intellectuals and power

241

THEORY:

Memes

IN SUM

Memes [rhymes with
“dreams”] are self-replicating
units of cultural information
that spread virally from mind
to mind, network to network,
generation to generation.

ORIGINS

Term coined by evolutionary
biologist Richard Dawkins
in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.

First connected to social change
strategies by Kalle Lasn of
Adbusters magazine.

PRACTITIONERS

Adbusters
smartMeme
Robbie Conal
Women in Black

CONTRIBUTED BY

Patrick R einsborough
Doyle Canning

242

“Although the term
may be relatively
new, memes have
always been used
by social movements
to spread stories
of liberation
and change ”

How do ideas spread? How does cultural change happen?
How does a symbol become a shared point of connection for
a movement? Through memes! Understanding how to intro-
duce and spread memes is a
crucial skill for anyone who
seeks to shift public opinion or
cultural practices.

A meme is like a piece of
cultural DNA that evolves as it
passes from person to person.

The term is derived from the
ancient Greek word mimema,
meaning, something imitated
Playing on the word “gene,”

Richard Dawkins coined the
term as a way of understand-
ing how cultural practices
spread. A meme is any unit of culture that has spread beyond
its creator — buzz words, catchy melodies, fashion trends,
ideas, rituals, iconic images, and so on.

Unscrupulous power-holders have shown considerable
skill at designing memes that spread their stories through the
culture: death panels, weapons of
mass destruction, the war on ter-
ror, union bosses and tax relief are
all memes that have become
part of the public discourse. A
meme is like a viral frame that
allows a story to spread, carry-
ing a certain worldview with it.

Although the term may
be relatively new, memes have
always been used by social
movements to spread stories of
liberation and change, from No taxation without representation
to Black is beautiful to living wage. The incredible spread of
Occupy Wall Street’s meme we are the 99% has shown not only
how a good meme can spread a powerful social change message
but also how a shared meme can serve as an organizing tool.

“A good meme
can spread
a powerful social
change message
and a shared meme
can serve as an
organizing tool."

THEORY: M ernes

Computer assisted reconstruction of a rotavirus particle.

Effective memes are memorable, easy to spread and “sticky.”
In other words they linger in our consciousness, connect with
our existing thinking and are easily passed on through our
communications and actions. A meme that embodies a mes-
sage and spreads rapidly can dramatically increase the impact
of an action or campaign.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: A potent meme alone will not win a cam-
paign or trigger systemic change. The right meme can, however,
help people-powered organizing be exponentially more
effective and influential by helping a message, an idea, or a
rallying cry go viral.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Adbusters Magazine

www.adbusters.org

Know Your Meme: The Internet
Meme Database

http://knowyourmeme.com

Kalle Lasn. Culture Jam: How to Stop
America's Suicidal Consumer Binge -
And Why We Must. New York, NY:

Harper Collin Publishers Inc., 2000.

Andrew Boyd. “Truth is a Virus:

Meme Warfare and the Billionaires
for Bush [or Gore).'' In Cultural
Resistance Reader, edited by
Stephen Duncombe. Verso, 2002.

Jonah Peretti & Contagious Media Projects

http://contagiousmedia.org

TACTICS

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Media-jacking p. 72
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Flash mob p. 46

PRINCIPLES

Reframe p. 168

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Think narratively p. 186

Brand or be branded p. 104

Seek common ground p. 170

Stay on message p. 178

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Make your own myths web

THEORIES

Narrative power analysis p. 244
Hashtag politics p. 238
Floating signifier p. 234
The propaganda model p. 256
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Networks and Netwars web

CASE STUDIES

99% bat signal p. 278
Yomango p. 400
Billionaires for Bush p. 296
Occupy Wall Street web

THEORY: Memes

243

THEORY:

Narrative

power analysis

IN SUM

All power relations have a
narrative dimension. Narrative
power analysis is a systematic
methodology for examining
the stories that abet the
powers that be in order to
better challenge them.

ORIGINS

Developed by the smartMeme
Strategy & Training Project

PRACTITIONERS

Abbie Hoffman
Greenpeace
ACT-UP

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

CONTRIBUTED BY

Patrick Reinsborough
Doyle Canning

244

Human beings are literally hardwired for narrative. Stories are
the threads of our lives and weave together to form the fabric
of human cultures. A story can inform or deceive, enlighten or
entertain, or all of the above at once. We live in a world shaped
by stories.

A traditional power analysis gives organizers and activists
an understanding of the power
relations and institutional
dynamics among key target
decision makers and allies.

Narrative power analysis provides
a framework to extend power
analysis into narrative space —
the intangible realm of stories,
ideas, and assumptions that
frame public perception of the
situation and the players in
question. Narrative helps de-
fine what is normal and what is
legitimate, as well as the limits
of what is politically possible. All power relations have such a
narrative component.

Narrative power analysis is based on the recognition that
the currency of story is not truth, but meaning. That is, what
makes a story powerful is not necessarily facts, but how the
story creates meaning in the hearts and minds of the listeners.
Therefore, the obstacle to convincing people is often not what
they don’t yet know but actually what they already do know.
In other words, people’s existing assumptions and beliefs can
act as narrative filters to prevent them from hearing social
change messages. A narrative power analysis seeks to unearth
the hidden building blocks of these pernicious narratives, so
that a narrative of liberation can better challenge them.

For example, in a traditional power analysis, a group of
neighbors organizing against a proposed commercial develop-
ment might determine that the mayor and the city council are
the ultimate decision makers and are influenced by the devel-
opers’ campaign contributions and by the opinions of voters in
X precinct. Next, the group can build on that understanding

wna r makes a
story powerful is
not necessarily
facts, but how
the story creates
meaning in the
hearts and minds
of the listeners ”

THEORY: Narrative power analysis

with a narrative power analysis of the story and memes the devel-
opers are using to promote their agenda. This means carefully
examining the developers’ narrative on its own terms: how do
they frame the problem they say they are solving? Who are their
messengers? How do they portray the community? What are
their unstated assumptions?

For instance, the developers may have framed their narra-
tive around “bringingjobs to the neighborhood.” Armed with
clarity about the developer’s narrative, the neighborhood
group can now craft their own
narrative and design a strategy
to isolate the developer. Perhaps
they decide to organize those
same small business owners
that the developer claims to represent. Perhaps they organize
a jobs fair to show that there are other ways to create
employment. If the developers are counting on a “You can’t tight
City Hall,” attitude, organizers make sure that their campaign
narrative emphasizes how people power has won victories in
the past. In short, the group challenges notjust the economic
and political forces they face, but also the narratives that back
those forces up, that legitimate them and allow those forces to
threaten their community.

Current realities are often rooted in oppressive narratives.
Our role as change agents is to undermine these narratives
and replace them with new stories that help build a fairer,
freer world.

“The currency of
story is not truth ,
but meaning. ”

FURTHER INSIGHT

smart Meme, “Narrative power
analysis worksheet"

http://trb.la/xV0R4S

Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough.
Redmagining Change: An Introduction to
Story-Based Strategy, smart Meme, 2009.

http://trb.la/ABaDFt

Center for Media Justice, “Toolbox”

http://centerformediajustice.org/toolbox

PRINCIPLES

Think narratively p. 18 6
Reframe p. 188

Choose your target wisely p. 114

Choose tactics that support

your strategy p. 112

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Stay on message p. 178

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Consider your audience p. 118

Turn the tables p. 190

Seek common ground p. 170

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Pillars of support p. 248
Hashtag politics p. 238
Action logic p. 208
Memes p. 242

The propaganda model p. 2 56

CASE STUDIES

Whose tea party? p. 392
Harry Potter Alliance p. 322
Citizens' Posse p. 300
Billionaires for Bush p. 296

THEORY: Narrative power analysis

245

THEORY:

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Over a lifetime of work with revolutionary organizers and edu-
cators, radical educator Paulo Freire created an approach to
emancipatory education and a lens through which to under-
stand systems of oppression in order to transform them. He
flipped mainstream pedagogy on its head by insisting that true
knowledge and expertise already exist within people. They
need no “deposits” of information (what Freire calls “banking
education”), nor do they need leftist propaganda to convince
them of their problems. What is required to transform the
world is dialogue, critical questioning, love for humanity, and
praxis, the synthesis of critical reflection and action.

In short, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is education as a practice of
freedom, which Freire contrasts with education as a practice of
domination see chart below.

IN SUM

An approach to education that
aims to transform oppressive
structures by engaging people
who have been marginalized
and dehumanized and drawing
on what they already know.

EPIGRAPH

“Education either functions as
an instrument which is used to
facilitate integration of the
younger generation into the
logic of the present system
and bring about conformity
or it becomes the practice of
freedom, the means by which
men and women deal critically
and creatively with reality and
discover how to participate in
the transformation of their world.”

-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy
of the Oppressed

ORIGINS

Paulo Freire first outlined his widely
influential theory of education in
Pedagogy of the Oppressed [1968).

CONTRIBUTED BY

Levana Saxon
Virginia Vitzthum

Banking education

education as the practice of
domination

Goal is to adapt people to
their oppressive conditions.

Teacher attempts to control
thinking and action of the
students, who are treated as
passive objects.

Assumes that people are merely
in the world, not connected to it
or each other.

Removes students from

their context; teaches reality as

unchangeable.

Treats oppressed people as
marginal to a healthy society and
in need of incorporation into it.

Fundamental to maintaining
systems of oppression.

Problem-posing education

education as a practice of
freedom

Goal is to transform structural
oppression.

Both educator and educand
(Freire ’s word for “student,”
designed to convey an equitable
and reciprocal relationship)
teach and learn from each other.

Assumes the world is an unfolding
historical process; everything and
everyone is interrelated.

Begins with the educands’ history,
present and unwritten future.

Seeks to transform society to
rehumanize both the oppressed
and their oppressors.

Fundamental to the revolutionary
process.

Dialogue and participatory action research are two practices
heavily influenced by Freire that are now common in the fields of

246

THEORY: Pedagogy of the oppressed

“Many progressive
movements today
are still trapped
in the ‘ banking ’
approach to
education, seeing
the public as a
passive receptacle
of their information.”

generate action.

Participatory action research, meanwhile, is a community-led
process in which people determine solutions to their problems by
gathering data from their peers, analyzing it, and then taking in-
formed action. It’s a model of community organizing that builds
the capacity and expertise of those on the front lines.

Unfortunately, many progressive movements today are still
trapped in the “banking” approach to education, seeing the
public as a passive receptacle of their information. According
to Freire, transforming the world requires flipping this model
and replacing it with ground-up practices of emancipatory
education, organizing and action.

popular education, critical peda-
gogy, Theater of the Oppressed,
and eco-pedagogy. Freire explains
that what most people think of
as dialogue is really just debate, a
zero-sum game in which people
compete to deposit ideas into
one another or name the world
on behalf of others as an end in
itself. In dialogue, on the other
hand, bodi parties work together
to name their world by explor-
ing their lived experiences to
identify common patterns and

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION: In the United States, Freire has in-
spired the movement for “critical pedagogy,” which seeks to re-
construct both schools and society. Around the world, Freire ’s
work has been used by many revolutionary movements (such
as Amilcar Cabral in Guinea Bissau, the Landless Workers’
Movement in Brazil, and the Zapatistas in Mexico) , by popular
literacy campaigns, and in the World Social Forums.

PRACTITIONERS

Augusto Boal
bell hooks
Michael Apple
Henry Giroux
M aocir G adotti
Carlos Alberto Torres
Richard Kahn
Highlander Center
Colectivo Flatlander
Project South PILA
Practicing Freedom
Data Center

FURTHER INSIGHT

Paulo Freire Institute

www.paulofreireinstitute.org

The Popular Education News

www.popednews.org

Project South: Institute for the
Elimination of Poverty and Genocide

www.projectsouth.org

Green Theory and Praxis: The
Journal of Ecopedagog y

www.greentheoryandpraxis.org

TACTICS

Forum theater p. 48
Image theater p. 62
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Praxis makes perfect p. 162
Enable, don't command p. 132
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Consensus is a means, not an end p. 116
Don't just brainstorm, artstorm! p. 128
We are all leaders p. 202

MIS-APPLICATION: Some educators take the words “popular
education” to simply mean taking complex information and
dumbing it down or sloganizing it, a misguided approach
rooted in the very idea that Pedagogy of the Oppressed op-
poses: that the educators are experts while the students are
empty and passive receptacles awaiting knowledge.

THEORIES

Anti-oppression p. 212
Theater of the Oppressed p. 272
Intellectuals and power p. 240
Cultural hegemony p. 222

CASE STUDIES

Daycare center sit-in p. 316

247

THEORY: Pedagogy of the oppressed

THEORY:

Pillars of support

IN SUM

Power stems not just from
a ruler’s ability to use force,
but from the consent and
cooperation of the ruled,
which can be voluntarily and
nonviolently withdrawn
by identifying, targeting
and undermining the ruler’s
“pillars of support” - the
institutions and organiza-
tions that sustain its power.

ORIGINS

Gandhi, Gene Sharp, Robert Helvey

PRACTITIONERS

Otpor

CANVAS

FURTHER INSIGHT

Helvey, Robert. On Strategic Nonviolent
Conflict: Thinking about the
Fundamentals. Boston: Albert
Einstein Institution, 2004.

Sharp, Gene. Waging Nonviolent
Struggle: Twentieth-Century Practice
and Twenty-First-Century Potential.
Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Eric Stoner

248

Conventional wisdom tells
us that power resides in the
hands of those at the top,
and that when push comes
to shove, “power grows out of
the barrel of a gun,” as Mao
famously said. If so, then the
only way to defeat a violent
opponent is through the use
of even greater violence.

At the root of all nonviolent
action, however, is a different
understanding of the nature
of power — one that flips
this conventional wisdom on
its head. This understanding
posits that power is ultimately
dependent on the cooperation
and obedience of large num-
bers of people acting through the institutions that constitute
the state. These are its pillars of support.

Some of these pillars, such as the military, the police
and the courts, are coercive in nature, compelling obedi-
ence through force or the threat thereof, while other pillars,
like the media, education system and religious institutions,
support the system through their influence over culture and
popular opinion. Hence, the power of even the most char-
ismatic or ruthless leader is contingent upon the support of
key institutions, themselves vulnerable to popular action or
withdrawal of consent from the general population.

Once people decide they no longer accept the status quo
and begin to resist, the balance of power shifts. For example,
when millions of Americans participated in the successful
five-year national boycott of grapes led by Cesar Chavez to
improve the pay and workers conditions of exploited farm
workers; when tens of thousands of activists effectively shut
down the World Trade Organization gathering in Seattle in
1999 by blocking the streets and entrances to the convention
center; when thousands of U.S. soldiers refuse to deploy or

Cesar Chavez leading a supermarket protest to
boycott grapes. Mass withdrawal of consent through
tactics like this United Farm Worker’s boycott can be
extremely effective at pressuring power-holders.

THEORY: Pillars of support

redeploy to the wars in Iraq or
Afghanistan, the power of the
powerful is constrained, and
can, in extreme situations,
disintegrate entirely.

For activists, the key take-
away lesson of the pillars of
support concept is to identify
a ruling target’s pillars of sup-
port, determine which can be
won over and how see PRINCI-
PLE: Shift the spectrum of allies,
and then set about working to
win over, or at least neutralize,
those pillars of support, so that
the foundation that sustains
the target begins to crumble.

Power ultimately rests not
in the grip of presidents, gener-
als and billionaires, but in the
hands of millions of ordinary
people who keep society run-
ning smoothly on a day-to-day
basis, and who can shut it down should they so choose. This is
the meaning of the slogan people power. One of the principle
reasons that so many injustices persist is not that the powerful
can simply do whatever they want with impunity, but because
most people are ignorant of the power they can wield by
withdrawing their consent see TACTIC: General strike.

This understanding of power has been repeatedly
vindicated in recent decades, as numerous dictators and
extremely repressive regimes were toppled by unarmed
people with minimal violence but much courage and creativity.
These successful nonviolent struggles simply cannot be
explained by someone who sees violence as the only, or
even the primary, mechanism of power.

“ Power ultimately
rests not in the
grip of presidents,
generals and
billionaires, but in
the hands of
millions of ordinary
people who keep
society running
smoothly on a
day-to-day basis,
and who can shut
it down should
they so choose ”

TACTICS

Mass street action p. 68
General strike p. 50
Occupation p. 78

PRINCIPLES

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
If protest is made illegal,
make daily life a protest p. 138
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
One no, many yesses web

THEORIES

The propaganda model p. 2 56
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Points of intervention p. 250

CASE STUDIES
Otpor web
CANVAS web

THEORY: Pillars of support

249

THEORY:

Points of intervention

IN SUM

A point of intervention
is a physical or
conceptual place within
a system where presure
can be put to disrupt
its smooth functioning
and push for change.

ORIGINS

smartMeme

PRACTITIONERS

Social movements
smartMeme
Ruckus Society
Design Studio for Social Intervention
Operation SalAMI

FURTHER INSIGHT

smart Meme, “Resources"
http://smartmeme.org/section.php?id=86

Patrick Reinsborough & Doyle Canning,
Re:lmagining Change [PM Press, 2010).

Doyle Canning & Patrick Reinsborough,
Story-based Strategies for Action Design.

http://trb.la/w4DWB2

Patrick Reinsborough, “De-Colonizing the
Revolutionary Imagination,” Globalize
Liberation, edited by David Solnit [San
Francisco: City Lights Press, 1994).

Destructables, “How to Hold Up a Bank"

http://destructables.org/node/47

CONTRIBUTED BY

Patrick Reinsborough
Doyle Canning

250

Points of intervention are specific places in a system where
a targeted action can effectively interrupt the functioning
of a system and open the way to change. By understanding
these different points, organizers can develop a strategy that
identifies the best places to intervene in order to have the
greatest impact.

Social movements have tra-
ditionally intervened by taking
direct action at physical points
in the systems that shape
our lives, but with the spread
of effective labor organizing
and the increasing power of
media, conceptual points of
intervention have become in-
creasingly important.

Truly effective interventions
go beyond simply disrupting
a system to pose a deeper
challenge to its underlying assumptions and basic legitimacy.
This holds true whether the intervention targets a physical
system like a sweatshop or an ideological system like racism,
sexism, or market fundamentalism.

The five types of points of intervention are points of
production (for instance, a factory), points of destruction
(a logging road), points of consumption (a retail store), points
of decision (a corporate headquarters) and points of assumption
(a foundational narrative or a place of symbolic importance) .

Point of production

Action at the point of production is the foundational insight
of the labor movement. Workers organize to target the
economic system where it directly affects them, and
where that system is most vulnerable. Strikes, picket lines,
work slowdowns, and factory take-overs are all point-of-
production actions.

Point of destruction

AA point of destruction is the place where harm or

wiw we
increasing
power of media,
conceptual points
of intervention
have become
increasingly
important ”

THEORY: Points of intervention

injustice is actually occurring. It could be the place where
resources are being extracted (a strip mine) or the place
where the waste from the point of production is dumped
(a land-fill). By design, the point of destruction is al-
most always far from public attention — made invisible by
remoteness, oppressive assumptions, or ignorance — and
tends to disproportionately impact already marginalized
communities. Intervention at the point of destruction
can halt an act of destruction in the moment, as well as
dramatize the larger conflict.

Intervention at the point of decision. Image by Grassy Narrows Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek.

Point of consumption

The point of consumption is the location of interaction
with a product or service that is linked to injustice. Point-
of-consumption actions are the traditional arena of
consumer boycotts and storefront demonstrations. The
point of consumption is often the most visible point
of intervention for actions targeting commercial entities.
Point-of-consumption actions can also be a good way
to get the attention of corporations when lawmakers
aren’t listening.

Point of decision

The point of decision, where the power to act on a
campaign’s demands rests, is often the most self-evident
point of intervention, and therefore one of the most

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLES

Reframe p. 168

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Choose tactics that support
your strategy p. 112
Put your target in a
decision dilemma p. 166
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154
Escalate strategically p. 134
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
Turn the tables p. 190
Stay on message p. 178
Think narratively p. 186
Bring the issue home p. 106

THEORIES

Pillars of support p. 248
Power structure analysis web
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Capitalism p. 216
Activist realpolitik web

CASE STUDIES

Barbie Liberation Organization p. 282

Daycare center sit-in p. 316

Taco Bell boycott p. 372

Colbert roasts Bush p. 308

Bidder 70 p. 290

Battle in Seattle p. 286

The salt march p. 354

Billionaires for Bush p. 296

Tar sands action p. 376

THEORY: Points of intervention

frequently targeted. Whether it’s a slumlord’s office see
CASE: Daycare center sit-in, a corporate boardroom or
state capital, or an international summit meeting see CASE:
Battle in Seattle, many successful campaigns have used some
form of action at the point of decision to put pressure on
key decision-makers.

Point of assumption

Assumptions are the building blocks of ideology, the DNA
of political belief systems. They operate best when they
remain unexamined. If basic assumptions can be exposed
as contrary to people’s lived experience or core values,
entire belief systems can be shifted. Actions that expose
and target widely held assumptions see CASE: Billionaires for
Bush and CASE: Barbie Liberation Organization can therefore
be very effective at shifting the discourse around an issue
and opening up new political space. Point-of-assumption
actions can take many different forms, such as exposing
hypocrisy, reframing the issue, amplifying the voices of
previously silenced characters in the story, or offering an
alternative vision see TACTIC: Prefigurative intervention.

Turning creative action into real change requires careful
strategizing. Identifying different possible points to target is
a great first step to help design actions that connect to large
campaign and social change goals.

252

THEORY: Points of intervention

IF YOU
DON'T
LIKE THE
NEWS...

GO OUT AND
MAKE SOME
OF YOUR
OWN.

Wes “Scoop” Nisker

THEORY:

Political identity paradox

IN SUM

Group identity offers embattled
activists a cohesive community,
but also tends to foster a
subculture that can be alienating
to the public at large. Balancing
these two tendencies is crucial
to sustaining the work of an
effective group, organization
or movement.

ORIGINS

Formulated by Jonathan Matthew
Smucker, influenced by Robert Putnam
on bonding and bridging, Antonio
Gramsci on hegemonic strategy and
Frederick D. Miller on encapsulation.

PRACTITIONERS

Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS)
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee [SNCC]
Situationist International

FURTHER INSIGHT

“The Political Identity Paradox I Evolu-
tionary logic of collective action pt. Ill”

“Bonding & Bridging / Populism
& Flegemony pt.3"

“Activists Caught in the Filter Bubble"

“What Prevents Radicals from Acting
Strategically? [pt.2: Encapsulation ij”

All articles by Jonathan Matthew Smucker

www.beyondthechoir.org

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jonathan Matthew Smucker

254

Any serious social movement needs a correspondingly serious
group identity that encourages a core of members to contrib-
ute an exceptional level of commitment, sacribce and heroics
over the course of prolonged struggle. Strong group identity,
however, is a double-edged sword. The stronger the identity
and cohesion of the group, the more likely people are to
become alienated from other groups, and from society. This is
the political identity paradox.

The political identity paradox suggests that while political
groups require a strong internal identity to foster the
commitment needed for effective political struggle, this same
cohesion tends to isolate the group. Isolated groups are hard-
pressed to achieve political goals.

This is true of all groups, but tends to have particular
consequences for a group involved in political struggle, which
has not only to foster a strong internal identity: it also has to
win allies.

The tendency toward isolation can escalate very quickly in
political groups, as oppositional struggle can foster an oppo-
sitional psychology. Activists who meet the kind of brutal re-
sistance that the civil eights movement endured, for example,
have a tough row to hoe. On the one hand, participants need
to turn to each other more than ever for strength and support.
They feel a compelling cohesiveness to their group identity in
these moments of escalated conflict. On the other hand, they
need to keep outwardly oriented, to stay connected to a broad
and growing base. This is difficult to do even when leaders are
fully oriented to the task, let alone when they are unprepared,
which is often the case.

Take, for example, Students for a Democratic Society (the
original SDS that fell apart in dramatic fashion in 1969). At
the center of the epic implosion of this massive student orga-
nization — beneath the rational arguments that leaders were
slinging at each other — was the political identity paradox.
Key leaders had become encapsulated in their oppositional
identity and grown more and more out of touch. They lost the
ability and inclination to relate to their broader membership —
a huge number of students at the moment of the implosion —
let alone to broader society. Some of the most committed

THEORY: Political identity paradox

would-be leaders of that generation came to see more value in
holing up with a few comrades to make bombs than in organiz-
ing masses of students to take coordinated action.

This is the tendency toward isolation taken to the ex-
treme. Dedicated radicals cut themselves off, like lone guerrilla

PRINCIPLES

Escalate strategically p. 134

Pace yourself p. 158

No one wants to watch a

drum circle p. 1 56

Use your radical fringe to

slide the Overton window p. 200

Consider your audience p. 118

Enable, don't command p. 132

Consensus is a means, not an end p. 116

THEORIES

The social cure p. 264
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Cycles of social movements web

By donning crash helmets, smashing windows and choosing to clash with the police during the Days of Rage protests
that were organized in the wake of the 1969 Democratic Convention riot in Chicago, the Weatherman faction of SDS
alienated many would-be supporters.

fighters in enemy territory. It might have felt glorious, but it
was a suicide mission.

The political identity paradox speaks to the need for politi-
cal groups to develop both strong bonding and strong bridging.
Without strong within-group bonding, group members will lack
the level of commitment required for serious struggles. But
without strong beyond-group bridging, the group will become
too insular and isolated to forge broad alliances.

Good leaders have to perform an extraordinary balancing
act between the conflicting imperatives of building a strong
sense of identity within their groups and connecting with allies
and potential allies beyond the group see PRINCIPLE: Escalate
strategically for ideas on how to strike this balance.

THEORY: Political identity paradox

255

e propaganda model

IN SUM

The propaganda model
seeks to explain the behavior
of news media operating
within a capitalist economy.
The model suggests that media
outlets will consistently
produce news content that
aligns with the interests of
political and economic elites.

EPIGRAPH

“Any dictator would admire
the uniformity and obedience
of the U.S. media.”

-Noam Chomsky

ORIGINS

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

PRACTITIONERS

Media Lens
Glenn Greenwald
Jeffrey Klaehn
Andrew Mullen

CONTRIBUTED BY

Simon Enoch

The propaganda model seeks to explain media behavior by
examining the institutional pressures that constrain and
influence news content within a profit-driven system. In
contrast to liberal theories that argue that journalism is ad-
versarial to established power, the propaganda model predicts
that corporate-owned news media will consistently produce
news content that serves the interests of established power.

The mass media often serves as a tool to manufacture consent, operating on unchallenged premises that serve the
narrow interests of political and economic elites.

First introduced in 1988 in Edward S. Herman’s and
Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Econ-
omy of the Mass Media, the propaganda model argues that
“the raw material of news” passes through five biters that
ultimately shape the news audiences receive. These biters
determine what events are deemed newsworthy, how they are
covered, where they are placed within the media and how
much coverage they receive.

The bve biters are as follows:

Concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit-orientation
of the dominant mass-media firms. Corporate media brms
share common interests with other sectors of the economy,
and therefore have a real stake in maintaining an economic

THEORY: The Propaganda model

and political climate that is conducive to their profitability.
They are unlikely to be critical of economic or political
policies that directly benefit them.

Advertising as primary source of income. To remain profit-
able, most media rely on advertising dollars for the bulk
of their revenue. It is therefore against the interests of
the news media to produce content that might antagonize
advertisers.

Reliance on information provided by “expert” and official
sources. Elites have the resources to routinely “facilitate”
the news-gathering process by providing photo-ops,
news conferences, press releases, think-tank reports and
canned news pieces that take advantage of the news
media’s need for continuous
and cheap news content.

Business leaders, politicians
and government officials
are also typically viewed
as credible and unbiased
sources of information,
jettisoning the need for
fact-checking or other cost-
ly background research.

Thisfilterwasclearlydemon-

“ We can develop
media tactics that
take advantage of
the contradictions
within corporate-
sponsored

, journalism ”

strated during the run-up

to the 2003 Iraq War, when the U.S. news media took
official pronouncements at face value, refusing to inves-
tigate their veracity or accuracy.

Flak as a means of disciplining the media. Flak refers to
negative commentary to a news story that can work to
police and discipline journalists or news organizations
that stray too far outside the consensus. Flak includes
complaints, lawsuits, petitions or government sanctions.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Herman, Edward S. “The Propaganda
Model Revisited.''

Monthly Review [July 1996],

http://trb.la/Admvz3

Klaehn, Jeffrey. “A Critical Review and
Assessment of Herman and Chomsky's
‘Propaganda Model.' "

http://trb.la/xbuy8Y

Mullen, Andrew. “The Propaganda Model
after 20 Years: Interview with Edward
S. Herman and Noam Chomsky."

http://trb.la/wTyBjz

Media Lens

www.medialens.org

Salon, Glenn G reenwald

http://www.salon.com/writer/

glenn_greenwald/

TACTICS

Identity correction p. 60
Electoral guerrilla theater p. 40
Media-jacking p. 12
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Guerrilla newspaper p. 52

PRINCIPLES

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Reframe p. 168

Stay on message p. 178

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Use your radical fringe to slide

the Overton window p. 200

Consider your audienece p. 118

THEORIES

Cultural hegemony p. 222
Intellectuals and power p. 240
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Pillars of support p. 248

An external enemy or threat. Manifesting as “anti-commu- CASE STUDIES

nism” during the Cold War period when Manufacturing Colbert roasts Bush p.308

Consent was originally published, this filter still operates, New York Times “Special Edition” web

particularly in the post-9/11 political climate. This filter

mobilizes the population against a common enemy

(terrorism, energy insecurity, Iran...) while demonizing

THEORY: The Propaganda model

257

opponents of state policy as insufficiently patriotic or in
league with the enemy.

The propaganda model suggests that corporate media
ultimately serve to “manufacture consent” for a narrow
range of self-serving elitist policy options. It allows us to
understand the institutional pressures that ultimately color
how activists’ causes and actions are covered. By understanding
the limits of “objectivity” and the contradictions within corpo-
rate-sponsored journalism, we can develop media tactics that
take advantage of these contradictions while also bypassing
the filters of the corporate press, and directly appealing
to the public through alternative forms of media. As Herman
himself suggests, “we would like to think that the propaganda
model can help activists understand where they might
best deploy their efforts to influence mainstream media
coverage of issues.” 1

1 Edward S. Herman, “The Propaganda Model Revisited,” Monthly Review Quly 1996).

258

THEORY: The Propaganda model

V -»4’

o a

Banksy says it best.

THEORY: The Propaganda model

259

THEORY:

Revolutionary nonviolence

(or “The marriage of Gandhi and Che")

IN SUM

Revolutionary nonviolence
emphasizes unity among
radicals and proposes a
militant nonviolent praxis
based on revolutionary
transformation and
mass civil resistance.

ORIGINS

Chicago 7 defendant Dave Dellinger ;
civil rights and feminist icon Barbara
Deming in her essay “Revolution and
Equilibrium the Plowshares movement.

PRACTITIONERS

The Zapatista Army of
National Liberation [EZLN]
Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement
Situationist International
Greenpeace
Earth First!

CONTRIBUTED BY

Matt Meyer

260

For activists working for radical change, there is a useful
distinction to be made between Gandhian, strategic and revolu-
tionary nonviolence. Gandhian nonviolence is a combination
of constructive, base-building programs and satyagraha,
often interpreted in the Global North as a form of
spiritual direct action. Strategic nonviolence see TACTIC takes
a more tactical tack and focuses on the tactics enumerated
by Gene Sharp. Meanwhile, as Gandhi himself noted, revo-
lutionary nonviolence suggests that it is better to engage in
violence than to do nothing in the face of oppression, 1 and
that any popular movement must push beyond mere
reformist change that leaves structures of oppression intact,
even though this requires active confrontation.

Indian activistjayaprakash (JP) Narayan made important
advances in this line of thinking, calling for “total revolution”
in a framework that included anti-authoritarianism, non-
orthodox Marxism and self-determination for all peoples. As
a campaigner at the time of the Chinese communist revolu-
tion, JP’s main critique of Mao Zedong’s maxim that “power
grows out of the barrel of a gun” was the simple observation
that those with the most destructive weapons were never the
masses of the population, but rather those with the most
entrenched power and authority. JP suggested that Mao’s
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (at least in its core
intentions) bore striking similarities to satyagraha, in that
both were meant to combat a profit-motivated mentality, and
both sought to disarm the exploiting classes.

The greatest successes of the Chinese and Vietnamese
strategy of people’s war — which calls for mobile tactics
and the creation of clandestine fighting units — often lay in
the implementation of popular education programs, the
creation of self-sufficient economic units and the formation
of mass-based organizations. The military successes were
more ambiguous. Even in the heat of battle, some of the
leaders of Africa’s liberation wars, most notably Amilcar
Cabral of Guinea-Bissau, commanded his followers to be
“militants, not militarists.” The widely repeated South

THEORY: Revolutionary nonviolence

African dictum that “nonvio-
lence just didn’t work” in the
ultra-repressive context of the
racist apartheid regime has
been refuted in post-apartheid
society, as even organizers of
the armed struggle now open-
ly question the ways in which
authoritarian styles grew out
of their military structures.

In the U.S. context, main-
stream academics are begin-
ning to discuss what many
African American activists
have quietly understood for decades: that the ideological
and tactical differences between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
and Minister Malcolm X were never as contradictory or diver-
gent as the popular narrative would have us believe. As each
developed and matured, their analyses of the nature of the
U.S. state, and the variety of approaches needed to resist it,
increasingly converged.

The theory of revolutionary nonviolence demands a nu-
anced view of struggle, one that does not over-emphasize the
dichotomy between nonviolent and armed revolutionaries —
that neither celebrates passivity nor fetishizes confron-
tation. It embraces the contributions of Archbishop
Desmond Tutu’s Ubuntu philosophy: the notion that everyone’s
liberation is indelibly connected. Advocates of revolution-
ary nonviolence must include an adherence to strategic
nonviolence, but also must maintain dialogues well beyond
those who agree with that framework.

1 “It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts," Gandhi said, “than to put on the cloak
of nonviolence to cover impotence." Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi (Secretary's Diary] Vol.
II (Rajghat, India: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, 1968], p. 175. See also: Mark Shepard's Mahatma
Gandhi and His Myths: Civil Disobedience, Nonviolence, and Satyagraha in the Real World, http://
www.markshep.com/peace/Myths.html

FURTHER INSIGHT

Amilcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea (New
York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1970).

James H. Cone, Martin and Malcolm
and America: A Dream or a Nightmare?
(M aryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992).

Barbara Demin g, “On Revolution and
Equilibrium," AJ Muste Memorial
Institute Essay Series Pamphlet
#2 (New York, NY: AJMMI, 198 5),

http://www.ajmuste. 0 rg/pamphlet.htm #2

Dave Dellinger, Revolutionary
Nonviolence (New York, NY:

Anchor Doubleday, 1971)

Frantz F anon, The Wretched of the Earth
(New York, NY: Grove Press, 2005)

Jayakapresh Narayan, Toward Total
Revolution (Bombay: Brahmanand
Popular Prakashan, 1978)

TACTICS

Strategic nonviolence p. 88
General strike p. 50
Mass street action p. 68
Direct action p. 32
Blockade p. 14

PRINCIPLES

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148

Escalate strategically p. 134

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 166

Choose tactics that support

your strategy p. 112

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 180

THEORIES

Pillars of support p. 248
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Points of intervention p. 250
Intellectuals and power p. 240
The tactics of everyday life p. 268

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286
The salt march p. 354

THEORY: Revolutionary nonviolence

THEORY:

e shock doctrine

IN SUM

Pro-corporate neoliberals
treat crises such as wars,
coups, natural disasters
and economic downturns as
prime opportunities to impose
an agenda of privatization,
deregulation, and cuts to
social services.

EPIGRAPH

“Only a crisis - actual or
perceived - produces real change.”

-Neoliberal economist Milton Friedman

ORIGINS

Naomi Klein’s 2007 book The Shock
Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mark Engler, with research
assistance by Eric Augenbraun

The shock doctrine is a theory
for explaining the way that
force, stealth and crisis are
used in implementing neo-
liberal economic policies
such as privatization, de-
regulation and cuts to social
services. Author Naomi Klein
advanced this theory in her
2007 book, The Shock Doctrine:
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

By way of metaphor, Klein
recounts the history of elec-
troshock therapy experiments
conducted by Scottish psychi-
atrist Ewen Cameron for the
CIA in the 1950s. Cameron’s “shock therapy” sought to return
troubled patients to a blank slate on which he could write a
new personality. Klein argues that a parallel “shock therapy”
process has been used at the macro level to impose neolib-
eral economic policies in countries around the world.

The shock doctrine posits that in periods of disorientation
following wars, coups, natural disasters and economic panics,
pro-corporate reformers aggressively push through unpopular
“free market” measures. For more than thirty years, Klein
writes, followers of Milton Friedman and other market
fundamentalists have been “perfecting this very strategy:
waiting for a major crisis, then selling off pieces of the state
to private players while citizens were still reeling from the
shock, then quickly making the ‘reforms’ permanent.”

One of the earliest examples of the shock doctrine is the
case of Chile. In 1973, Chile’s democratically elected socialist
President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d’etat
led by army general Augusto Pinochet, with support from the
United States. Amid lingering turmoil created by the coup
and tensions caused by the ensuing economic downturn,
Milton Friedman suggested that Pinochet implement a “shock
program” of sweeping reforms including privatization of
state-owned industries, elimination of trade barriers, and cuts

262

THEORY: The shock doctrine

“ In periods of
disorientation
following wars,
coups, natural
disasters and
economic panics,
pro-corporate
reformers
aggressively push
through unpopular
‘ free market 1
measures ”

to government spending. To
implement these policies, the
Pinochet regime appointed to
important positions several
Chilean disciples of Friedman.

Additionally, to squash popular
movements that opposed these
changes, the regime unleashed
a notorious program of torture
and “disappearances,” which
ultimately led to the deaths of
thousands of dissidents.

Klein contends that various
forms of the shock doctrine
have since been used to advance
hyper-capitalist reforms, for
example in former Eastern
Bloc countries following the
collapse of the Soviet Union
and in South Africa after the end of apartheid. More recently,
pro-corporate advocates have used the 2004 tsunami in
south Asia to privatize public beaches in Sri Lanka and have
worked to slash corporate taxes and public education and
re-shape neighborhoods in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
In each case we witness, in Klein’s words, “orchestrated raids
on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events,
combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market
opportunities.”

Although the shock doctrine has helped explain neoliberal
attempts to take advantage of disaster situations, it cannot
entirely account for the success of “free market” ideology,
particularly in cases in which the market’s powers of seduction
play a larger role than the use of brute force. Moreover, we
should remember that neoliberals are not the only ones
who can capitalize on a crisis. Throughout the world, social
movements are learning that political upheaval and economic
downturn can create opportunities for popular movements
to demand, and construct, a more just and equitable society.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The rise
of disaster capitalism. Metropolitan, 2007.

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

Engler, Mark. “Capitalism as Catastrophe:
A Review of Naomi Klein's The Shock
Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."
Dissent (Spring 2008],

http://trb.la/zaqH MF

TACTICS

Mass street action p. 68

THEORIES

Intellectuals and power p. 240
The commons p. 220
Capitalism p. 216
Points of intervention p. 250
Cycles of social movement s web

CASE STUDIES

Wisconsin Capitol Occupation p. 39 6

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION: Chile under Pinochet (1973-1989);
post-Soviet Russia; post-tsunami Sri Lanka; post-Katrina
New Orleans.

THEORY: The shock doctrine

263

THEORY:

e social

cure

IN SUM

People are more likely to
be motivated to action by peer
groups than by information
or appeals to fear. The
social cure is a method of
harnessing this power of social
groups for social change.

ORIGINS

Join the Club: How Peer Pressure
Can Transform the World by Tina
Rosenberg [Norton, 2011)

PRACTITIONERS

Otpor & CANVAS
loveLife

Students Working Against Tobacco

FURTHER INSIGHT

Waging Nonviolence, “How Peer Pressure
Creates Social Change" [interview
with Tina Rosenberg)

http://trb.la/wdxs10

A Force More Powerful, “Review
of Bringing Down a Dictator"

http://trb.la/A45VtQ

Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points

http://trb.la/xnaBVh

CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide
to Effective Nonviolent Struggle

http://trb.la/ysFOoX

CONTRIBUTED BY

Bryan Farrell

264

People are rarely swayed by infor-
mation alone. If they were, the to-
bacco industry would have collapsed
when the first Surgeon General’s
report on smoking came out in
1964, and fossil fuels would have
been phased out in 1989, when the
threat of global warming reached
public consciousness.

So what does move us? According to Tina Rosenberg,
author of Join the Club, it’s peer pressure. You know, the
same thing that compels teenagers to engage in all sorts of
risky behavior that drives parents crazy. But there’s more to it
than that.

Peer pressure is also responsible for some astounding
instances of positive social change, from lowering HIV rates
among South African youths (loveLife) to reducing the num-
ber of teen smokers in the United States (Students Working
Against Tobacco). Both advances, Rosenberg explains, came
about through targeted efforts by local NGOs to activate peer
networks for positive social change.

It’s a point that many are willing to accept in theory. Few,
though, would believe that something so simple could topple
a brutal dictator. But that’s precisely what the Serbian student
movement Otpor was able to achieve when it transformed a
previously passive and fatalistic citizenry into the nonviolent
army that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic , the “Butcher of the
Balkans,” in 2000.

As Rosenberg explains in her book, “Traditional democ-
racy activists create political parties. Otpor created a party.
People joined the movement for the same reasons they go to
the hot bar of the moment.” By branding itself with hip slo-
gans, black t-shirts, absurd humor, rock music and an iconic
clenched-hst graphic, the eleven founders of Otpor — all uni-
versity students at the time — reinvented resistance in Serbia
by making it a desirable club to join.

They even managed to create a cult around getting
arrested. For teenage boys, it was a way to be rebellious and
win the respect of girls at the same time. Eventually, getting

“Their language
smelled like
death. And we
won because we
loved life more."

THEORY: The social cure

arrested became a competition and kids would compete to
rack up the most busts. As one Otpor member noted,
“When someone asks me who took down Milosevic , I say,
‘High school kids.’ ”

By appealing to people’s need, not just for information but
for identification, Otpor showed that the social cure can be
used in even the most difficult and repressive of situations as a
force for rallying citizen power. Put more simply, in the words
of Otpor founder Srdja Popovic, “Their language smelled like
death. And we won because we loved life more.”

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Mass street action p. 68
Carnival-protest web

PRINCIPLES

Think narratively p. 186

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Create heroes, not victims web

Make new folks welcome p. 150

If protest is made illegal, make

daily life a protest p. 138

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

THEORIES

Political identity paradox p. 254
Cultural hegemony p. 222
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Anti-oppression p. 212

“The student movement Otpor was able to galvanize a movement against Serbian president Milosovic through hip
slogans and a cult of cool around getting arrested."

THEORY: The social cure

265

THEORY:

ociety of the spectacle

IN SUM

Modern capitalism upholds
social control through
the spectacle, the use of
mass communications to
turn us into consumers and
passive spectators of our own
lives, history and power.

EPIGRAPH

“Politics is that dimension
of social life in which things
become true if enough people
believe them.”

-David G raeber

ORIGINS

French philosopher and
activist Guy Debord

PRACTITIONERS

Adbusters
Abbie Hoffman
Situationist International

FURTHER INSIGHT

Guy Debord, The Society of the
Spectacle. Paris: Buchet-Castel, 1967.

http://trb.la/yEMEpq

Gil Scott Heron's famous words, embodied here at Occupy Los Angeles, October 2011, capture the disconnect between the

CONTRIBUTED BY spectacle and the political reality.

Dave Oswald Mitchell

“In societies dominated by modern conditions of production,
life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles,”
Guy Debord ’s Society of the Spectacle (1967) begins. “Everything
that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” The
political consequence of this separation from felt experience
is key to understanding both how we experience the world and
how we can change it.

For example, consider how people who witness a cata-

266

THEORY: Society of the spectacle

strophic event often say the experience was “like a movie.”
Similarly, as activists we are often more concerned with the
media attention our actions generate than with their end
result. What we feel, what we believe, how we express desire,
what we believe is possible — all are filtered through, and
constrained by, the media we consume and produce. This is
the society of the spectacle that Debord, a leading figure in the
French Situationist movement, Um ... .
described and decried.

Marx famously argued that
under capitalism, the com-
modity becomes “fetishized”
and reduced to its exchange
value. Debord applied Marx’s
ideas to mass communica-
tion, showing how capitalism
has penetrated not just what
we produce and consume, but
how we communicate. The
spectacle — as manifested in mass entertainment, news,
and advertising — alienates us from ourselves and our
desires in order to facilitate the accumulation of capital.

Increasingly, the spectacle serves as capitalism’s primary
mechanism of social control. This is control by seduction and
distraction, not force — but no less powerful and insidious for
that fact. Debord argued that our lives have been degraded,
first from being into having, then from having into merely
appearing. (Think how much of our day-to-day “activist”
behavior is concerned simply with maintaining our self-image
as activists: too often, we don’t strike, we strike poses.)

Seeking to free us from the power of the spectacle in order
to mount a credible challenge to capitalism, the Situationists
introduced the tactic of detournement: an attempt to turn the
powers of the spectacle against itself see TACTIC: Detournement/
Culture jamming.

as activists we
are often more
concerned with the
media attention
our actions
generate than with
their end result ”

TACTICS

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 32
Identity Correction p. 14

PRINCIPLES

Brand of be branded p. 174
Know your cultural terrain web
Do the media's work for them p. 18 6
No one wants to watch a
drum circle p. 152
Make your actions both
concrete and communicative p. 154

THEORIES

Commodity fetishism p. 236
Marxism p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 244
The propaganda model p. 244

THEORY: Society of the spectacle

267

THEORY:

e tactics of everyday life

IN SUM

Tactics are not
a subset of strategy,
but a democratic
response to it.

ORIGINS

Michel de Certeau, The Practice
of Everyday Life [1984],

PRACTITIONERS
FURTHER INSIGHT

Stan Goff, “Strategy and tactics," Feral
Scholar, September 29, 2010, Fantasy.

http://trb.la/zXPvRC

Michel de Certeau, The Practice
of Everyday Life. [University
of California Press, 2002).

CONTRIBUTED BY

Stan Goff

268

Strategy and tactics, as the concepts are commonly understood,
have their roots in military theory. The French Jesuit scholar
Michel de Certeau, however, drew a distinction between the
two terms that leaps over some of the martial history of
these ideas.

In military parlance, strategy is the identification of key
campaigns that are necessary to accomplish the main objective
— in most cases, winning the war. Operations are the level of
planning that determines key battles necessary to win cam-
paigns. Tactics are those techniques that are required to win
battles. So the tactic is subordinate to the campaign, which is
subordinate to the strategy. Those who adapt the model inherit
the hierarchy in which it is based.

De Certeau took a different approach, positing tactics
not as subordinate to strategy but as opposed to it. He wrote
about people in their everyday lives, not in conditions
of extremity and conflict, in a book fittingly entitled The
Practice of Everyday Life (1984).

The setting of strategy, notes
de Certeau, is always the purview
of power. Strategy presumes
control. Strategy is self-segre-
gating, in the same way admin-
istration and management are
self-segregating, setting itself
up as a barricaded insider. The
strategic leaders become the
Subject; the led and the enemy
become the Objects. Strategy
presumes an in-group that car-
ries out campaigns.

In contrast to strategy, de
Certeau characterizes tactics as the purview of the non-
powerful. He understands tactics not as a subset of strategy,
but as an adaptation to the environment, which has been
created by the strategies of the powerful. The city planning
commission may determine what streets there will be, but the
local cabbie will figure out how best to navigate the lived reality
of those streets. This art of making-do is what de Certeau calls

The tactics in this football play are analogous to a tacti-
cal plan for a political action or campaign. When grass-
roots “players" can adapt and adjust in line with a shared
general goal, the resulting tactical agility gives us a
one-up on the less responsive strategies of institutions.

THEORY: The tactics of everyday life

bricolage, a process that often implies cooperation as much as
competition.

Strategy, de Certeau recognizes, makes two presumptions:
control and an in-group. The inherent contradiction of strat-
egy is that the control is never perfect and the situation upon
which the strategy was constructed is always changing, which
constantly makes aspects of the strategy obsolescent. The self-
segregation of in-groups magnifies these myopic aspects of
strategy, because the walls that keep others out also obscure
their vision. Strategy becomes dangerously self-referential.

Tactics, on the other hand,

’ fiT ±1 I ;|; x . .

are action in a constant state of
reassessment and correction,
based directly on observations
of the actual environment. Tac-
tical theorist John Boyd rather
schematically diagrammed this
process as an “OODA-loop,”
in which people observe their
surroundings (O), orient on the
most important developments
in the environment (O), decide
on an immediate course of
action (D), take that action (A),
then revert immediately to observation of the environment
to see how their last action might have changed it (orienting
again, deciding again, acting again, in a perpetual adaptive
loop) . There is no presumption of how things will turn out,
as there is in strategy. Instead, there is readiness to take
advantage of unpredictable changes; this is called tactical
agility, and it is often what sets popular uprisings apart from
the institutions they seek to overthrow: they have strategy,
we have tactics.

Strategies are undermined by unpredictability. Tactics
make an ally of unpredictability.

lacucai agility
is often what sets
popular uprisings
apart from the
institutions they
seek to overthrow:
they have strategy ;
we have tactics.”

TACTICS

Flash mob p. 46
Infiltration p. 64
Creative disruption p. 18
Distributed action p. 36
Media-jacking p. 12
Eviction blockade p. 44

PRINCIPLES

Put your target in a decision

dilemma p. 166

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 180

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative insurgency web
Pillars of support p. 248
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260
Cultural hegemony p. 222

CASE STUDIES

Bidder 70 p. 290
Teddy-bear catapult p. 380
The Battle in Seattle p. 286
Occupy Wall Street web
Taco Bell boycott p. 372

THEORY: The tactics of everyday life

269

THEORY:

©Temporary autonomous zone

IN SUM

An alternative to traditional
models of revolution, the T.A.Z
is an uprising that creates
free, ephemeral enclaves of
autonomy in the here-and-now.

EPIGRAPH

“Are we who live in the
present doomed never to
experience autonomy, never
to stand for one moment
on a bit of land ruled
only by freedom?”

-Hakim Bey

ORIGINS

Hakim Bey [aka Peter Lamborn Wilson)

PRACTITIONERS

The Diggers [1960s]
Improv Everywhere
The [new] Diggers

FURTHER INSIGHT

Hakim Bey, T.A.Z. : The Temporary
Autonomous Zone, Ontological
Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism [New
York, NY: Autonomedia, 1991)
Full text of book available
for download here:
http://hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html

Video: “Improv Everywhere:
Say Something Nice"

http://youtu.be/RwEYYTAGWs

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Jordan

270

Coined in 1990 by poet, anarcho-immediatist and Sufi scholar
Hakim Bey, the term temporary autonomous zone (T.A.Z.) seeks to
preserve the creativity, energy and enthusiasm of autonomous
uprisings without replicating the inevitable betrayal and
violence that has been the reaction to most revolutions
throughout history. The answer, according to Bey, lies in
refusing to wait for a revolutionary moment, and instead
create spaces of freedom in the immediate present whilst
avoiding direct confrontation with the state.

A T.A.Z. is a liberated area “of land, time or imagination”
where one can be for something, not just against, and where
new ways of being human together can be explored and
experimented with. Locating itself in the cracks and fault lines
in the global grid of control and alienation, a T.A.Z. is an erup-
tion of free culture where life
is experienced at maximum
intensity. It should feel like
an exceptional party where
for a brief moment our desires
are made manifest and we all
become the creators of the
art of everyday life.

The key, suggests Bey, is to remain mobile, relying on stealth
and the ability to melt into the darkness at a moment’s notice.
Before the T.A.Z is spotted and recognized by the state, which
will inevitably seek to crush it, it dissolves and moves on, reappear-
ing in unexpected places to celebrate once again the wonders of
conviviality and life outside the law. It might last hours, days, years
even, depending on how quickly it is noticed by authorities.

Bey claims that T.A.Z.s have always existed. He sees their
ancestry in the numerous liberated zones that pepper history:
from the secret “state” of the medieval Persian Assassins to the
eighteenth century pirate utopias — islands where buccaneers,
escaped slaves and convicts lived outside the law, sharing goods
and property. From the radical communes of Paris and Munich
to the dissatisfied colonizers of North America who deserted
their enclave to join Native American communities, leaving the
infamous sign behind them, “Gone to Croatan .”

Bey maintains, however, that the T.A.Z. cannot be defined;

“...an eruption of
free culture where
life is experienced
at maximum
intensity.”

THEORY: Temporary autonomous zone

-ndfl

WS1

Burning Man - the quintessential Temporary Autonomous Zone. Photo by Dave Oswald Mitchell.

it is simply a “suggestion ... a poetic fancy,” not “political dogma,”
and that “if the phrase became current it would be under-
stood without difficulty. . . understood in action.” Twenty years
on, the notion of T.A.Z has inspired movements and actions
across the world, from the creative play of Reclaim the Streets
parties see CASE to the autonomy of protest encampments, the
Anonymous hacker movement to the Burning Man festival and
secret rainbow gatherings.

When Bey first came up with the concept, the web was in
its infancy, yet he already imagined a future world where a
multitude of autonomous zones could be linked by dispersed
networks of communication freed from political control. The
web would not bean end in itself, he wrote, but a weapon without
which autonomous zones would perish. At the time, he
dismissed his own theory as pure speculative science fiction,
but the future always arrives faster than one can imagine.

TACTICS

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Occupation p. 78
Encampment web
Flash mob p. 46

PRINCIPLES

If protest is made illegal, make
daily life a protest p. 138
Balance art and message p. 100
We are all leaders p. 202

THEORIES

The tactics of everyday life p. 2 68
Political identity paradox p. 254
The commons p. 220
Points of intervention p. 250
Ontological Anarchy web

CASE STUDIES

Occupy Wall Street web
Reclaim the Streets p. 350
Burning Man web
Small gifts p. 360

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION: If we wrote it down here the
authorities would soon learn about it and it would have to
dissolve. Keep your senses open; the nearest T.A.Z. is nearer
than you think.

IMPORTANT BUT LITTLE-KNOWN APPLICATION: The 1920-24 free
state of Fiume (now the city of Rijeka, Croatia), whose consti-
tution was written by poets and anarchists.

THEORY: Temporary autonomous zone

eater of the Oppressed

IN SUM

Theater of the Oppressed
provides tools for people
to explore collective
struggles, analyze their
history and present
circumstances, and then
experiment with inventing
a new future together
through theater.

EPIGRAPH

“The theater itself is not
revolutionary: it is a
rehearsal for the revolution.”

Augusto Boat, 1975. (Cedoc/Funarte)

-Augusto Boat

ORIGINS

Drawing inspiration from Freire, Brecht,
and Stanislavski, Augusto Boal devel-
oped the Theater of the Oppressed in
practice throughout his career, starting
in the '50s in Brazil and later in Argen-
tina, Peru, Ecuador and France while in
exile from the military dictatorship.

PRACTITIONERS

Julian Boal
Brent Blair
Cheryl Harrison
Mark Weinburg
Mark Weinblatt
Rosa Gonzales
Melina Bobadilla
Jiwon Chung
Practicing Freedom
Los Angeles Poverty Department

CONTRIBUTED BY

Levana Saxon

Theater of the Oppressed is an arsenal of theater techniques
and games that seeks to motivate people, restore true dialogue,
and create space for participants to rehearse taking action. It
begins with the idea that everyone has the capacity to act in the
“theater” of their own lives; everybody is at once an actor and a
spectator. We are “spect-actors!” — a term which Boal coined.

Boal points out that when we are simply passive audience
members, we transfer our desire to take action onto the char-
acters we identify with, and then find that desire satiated as
the conflict resolves itself on stage, in films or in the news.
Catharsis substitutes for action.

Boal, following Brecht, calls this bourgeois theater, which
functions to reproduce elite visions of the world and pacify
spectators. He says bourgeois theater is “finished” theater; the
bourgeoisie already know what the world is like and so simply
present it onstage.

In contrast to bourgeois theater, “the people” do not yet
know what their world will be like Their “authentic” theater
is therefore unfinished, and can provide space to rehearse
different possible outcomes. As Boal says: “One knows how
these experiments will begin but not how they will end, be-
cause the spectator is freed from his chains, finally acts, and
becomes a protagonist.” 1

THEORY: Theater of the Oppressed

Theater of the Oppressed encompasses many forms,
including the following:

Image theater see TACTIC invites spect-actors to form a tab-
leau of frozen poses to capture a moment in time drama-
tizing an oppressive situation. The image then becomes
a source of critical reflection, facilitated by various kinds
of interventions: spect-actors may be asked to depict an
ideal image of liberation from that oppression, and then
a sequence of transition images required to reach it, or to
reshape an image to show different perspectives.

Forum theater see TACTIC is a short play or scene that dra-
matizes a situation, with a terribly oppressive ending that
spect-actors cannot be satisfied with. After an initial per-
formance, it is shown again, however this time the specta-
tors become spect-actors and can at any point yell “freeze”
and step on stage to replace the protagonist (s) and take
the situation in different directions. Theater thus becomes
rehearsal for real-world action.

Legislative theater takes forum theater to the government
and asks spect-actors to not only attempt interventions on
stage, but to write down the successful interventions into
suggestions for legislation and hand them in to the elected
officials in the room.

Invisible theater see TACTIC is a play that masquerades as
reality, performed in a public space. The objective is to unsetde
passive social relations and spark critical dialogue among
the spect-actors, who never learn that they are part of a play.
Augusto Boal said of one invisible theater intervention, “The
actor became the spectator of the spectator who had become
an actor, so the fiction and reality were overlapping.” 1 2

FURTHER INSIGHT

International theater of the
Oppressed Organization

www.theateroftheoppressed.org

Pedagogy and theater of the Oppressed

www.ptoweb.org

Boal, Augusto. Garries for Actors and
Non-Actors [London: Routledge, 1992).

Boal, Augusto. Theater of the
Oppressed [New York: Theater
Communications Group, 1993).

Friedlandm, Ellie, and Toby Emert, eds.
Come Closer: Critical Perspectives
on Theater of the Oppressed [ New
York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011).

TACTICS

Forum theater p. 48
Image theater p. 62
Invisible theater p. 66
Guerrilla theater web
Street theater web

PRINCIPLES

Anyone can act p. 98
Praxis makes perfect p. 162
No one wants to watch a
drum circle p. 156
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Balance art and message p. 100
We are all leaders p. 202

THEORIES

Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246
Alienation effect p. 210
Anti-oppression p. 212
Ethical spectacle p. 230

A final point that perhaps can’t be stated enough: our move-
ments need to be more strategic and community-led ! Theater of
the Oppressed offers arts-based strategy-developing exercises
that foster collaboration and community-led engagement.
What could be more awesome?

1 Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed. London: Pluto Press, 2000.

2 Interview, Democracy Now! June 3, 2005.

CASE STUDIES

Battle in Seattle p. 286
Tar Sands Action p. 376
Daycare center sit-in p. 31 6
Camp Casey web
Teddy bear catapult p. 380
Whose Tea Party? p. 392
The salt march p. 354
The Trail of Dreams p. 384

THEORY: Theater of the Oppressed

273

THEORY:

rite your own THEORY

IN SUM What’s the big idea ?

EPIGRAPH

ORIGINS

PRACTITIONERS

FURTHER INSIGHT

CONTRIBUTED BY

274

THEORY: Write your own THEORY

TACTICS

MOST FAMOUS APPLICATION:

PRINCIPLES

MOST INFAMOUS APPLICATION:

CASES

The modular format of Beautiful Trouble allows the collection
to expand endlessly to reflect new tactical breakthroughs,
underrepresented areas of struggle and overlooked pearls
of wisdom.

THEORY: Write your own THEORY

275

CASE STUDIES

WHERE THE RUBBER

MEETSJHEROAD

Capsule stories of successful creative actions,
useful for illustrating how tactics, principles
and theories can be successfully applied.

“ Success means going from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm.”

— Winston Churchill

Revolutionaries practice without safety nets. Our
laboratory is the world around us - the streets, the
Internet, the airwaves, our own hearts, as well as the
hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. We experiment,
we fail, we change things up, we try again, maybe this
time a little less disastrously, a little more beautifully -
until we win. Always we learn. Case studies are where
we learn what we’ve learned.

WHEN

November 17, 2011

WHERE

New York City

EPIGRAPH

“99% /MIC CHECK! /LOOK
AROUND /YOU ARE A PART/
OF A GLOBAL UPRISING /WE
ARE A CRY/ FROM THE HEART
/OF THE WORLD/WEARE
UNSTOPPABLE/ ANOTHER
WORLD IS POSSIBLE/ HAPPY
BIRTHDAY/ #OCCUPY
MOVEMENT/ OCCUPY WALL
STREET / list of cities, states
and countries / OCCUPY EARTH
/WEARE WINNING/IT IS THE
BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING
/DO NOT BE AFRAID /LOVE.”

-Projection Text, Mark Read

PRACTITIONERS

Occupy Wall Street

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mark Read

278

A coalition of labor unions had called for a national day of
action on November 17 to push back against austerity and
demand infrastructure improvements and jobs. Actions were
planned for seventeen bridges in seventeen cities. In New York
City, a permit was obtained for a large rally in the Wall Street
area, with a march over the Brooklyn Bridge to follow. No-
vember 17 also happened to be the two-month birthday cel-
ebration for #Occupy Wall Street. People wanted something
spectacular to happen, something beautiful.

The November 17 action coordination working group
planned to purchase ten thousand small LED lights to hand
out to the crowd as they encircled City Hall and streamed over
the pedestrian walkway of the bridge, creating a river of light.
The metaphor of light was important, as we were celebrating
Occupy Wall Street’s commitment to shining a light on a cor-
rupt and broken political and economic system. But we need-
ed something bigger. We started talking about projections,
and Hero (yes, his name is Hero) suggested a “bat signal.” A
big circle with “99 %” in the middle. It seemed too perfect, so
we got to work making that a reality.

Within spitting distance of the Brooklyn Bridge pedestri-
an walkway stands a thirty-two-story gray concrete slab of a
building commonly known as “the Verizon building.” A flat
windowless expanse approximately seventy-five feet in width
extends up the face, with low ambient light. Cityhousingprojects
fifteen stories tall sit in its shadow. We had our projection
screen. We had secured the loan of a powerful projector. We
had ideas for content.

What we needed was a projection room.

We needed to project from an apartment in one of those
buildings. I put up signs offering $250 for the use of an apart-
ment for an art and him project. There were few calls at first,
but eventually a call came in from one Denise Vega — a sin-
gle mother of two, born and raised in those housing projects
and working to keep her family fed. She had the window we
needed, and more importantly a supportive and enthusiastic
attitude. In the end she refused to take any money for the use
of her home, declaring, “I can’t charge you money, this is for
the people.”

CASE: 99% bat signal

“It seemed too
perfect , so we got
to work making
that a reality”

In the days before the action
we began to realize that we
would be able to project not
just the 99% symbol, but also
words large enough and bright
enough for people to read from
the bridge. This opened up
many possibilities. What if we could get the crowd to interact
with the projections? We would need to project chants in the
proper cadence, to get people started. After that, we imagined
that we might be able to get people to use the “human micro-
phone” to “mic check” a brief statement.

Amazingly, all went as planned, and the action was
even more successful that we could have hoped for. The
20,000-strong crowd on the bridge went crazy. We could hear
them shouting, cheering, and, yes, “mic-checking” from the
window of Denise’s bedroom. We were interacting with the
crowd, mixing the projections on the fly in response to the
crowd’s reactions. It was the galvanizing, unifying moment of
joy and celebration that we’d hoped to provide this burgeoning
global movement for a more just and democratic world.

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “#Occu py Bat Signal for the 99%"

http://trb.la/A3cFFM

Xeni Jardin, “Interview with creator
of Occupy Wall Street ‘bat-signal'
projections during Brooklyn
Bridge #N17 march," Boing Boing,

Nov. 17, http://trb.la/A1AydA

InterOccupy, “Occupy ‘Bat
Signal' Source Files"

http://interoccupy.org/occupy-bat-signal/

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Floating signifier p. 234
Points of intervention p. 250
Expressive and instrumental
actions p. 232

The action worked because all the elements fell into place: WHY IT WORKED

the technology was powerful, the weather cooperated and the
scale suited the occasion. Most vitally, though, the action was
embedded within a movement and played on elements from
movement culture — both in style and in substance. The “hu-
man mic” and “mic check” were tropes that were immediately
grasped and appreciated. Most of the language came from
chants or well known slogans. The “bat signal” itself required
no translation. It’s a part of our cultural commons, part of the
“spectacular vernacular” of global pop culture, a symbol we all
understand to be a call for aid and an outlaw call to arms —
after all, isn’t that precisely what the Occupy movement is?

Of course Batman is actually a quasi-sociopathic million-
aire vigilante. A one-percenter, you might say. But by Riling
that symbol — by occupying it — with our own content —

“99 %” — we appropriated it for the rest of us. And in this re-
configuration, we were no longer waiting for some superhero,
be it a masked vigilante or the first black president, to swoop
in and save the day. Rather, we were the response to our own
call for aid.

CASE: 99% bat signal

279

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Mass street action p. 68
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Direct action p. 32

GUERRILLA PROJECTION: Guerrilla projection is a visually power-
ful and often very beautiful method for delivering a political
message. It can be used as an action in and of itself, or to en-
hance existing actions; to rebrand an existing structure, or to
frame an action. It’s versatile, carries little risk, can be done in-
expensively, and only requires surprisingly less technical savvy
than you might think. The success or failure of the tactic will
always depend on the quality of the content: make sure that
you balance the desire to do something artful with the need
for clarity.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Balance art and message p. 100
No one wants to watch a
drum circle p. 1 56
Stay on message p. 178
Brand or be branded p. 104
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
Consider your audience p. 118
Escalate strategically p. 134
Do the media’s work for them p. 124
Be both expressive and
instrumental web
Find common ground p. 170

KNOW THE CULTURAL TERRAIN: Superhero mythology is argu-
ably one of the most prefigurative aspects of spectacular cul-
ture, and quite ripe for re-appropriation. The heroes in masks
and on the screen are not just corporate cash cows; they also
frequently represent values subversive to the very corporations
that profit from them. Exploit these contradictions.

HOPE IS A MUSCLE: The messaging that we projected was unflag-
gingly inspirational and positive (“we are unstoppable,” etc.).
We actually had some text in the can (“Banks got bailed out,
we got sold out”) that we didn’t end up using because it had
the wrong tone. As the evening played out, it was evident that
we were creating a moment of pure, celebratory optimism. It
was heady and powerful.

USE THE POWER OF RITUAI The human microphone had be-
come the central ritual of the Occupy movement. It is itself
a repeatedly performed act of solidarity and unity. With the
right message and setting, it can have a powerful emotional
effect on crowds. By working it into our light projection, we hit
on a new incarnation of this powerful ritual.

280

CASE: 99% bat signal

On November 17, 2011, the 99% briefly left their imprint on the New York skyline and the world's political imagination.
Photo by Brandon Neubauer.

CASE: 99% bat signal

281

CASE STUDY:

wThe Barbie Liberation Organization

WHEN

December 25, 1993

WHERE

U.S.A.

PRACTITIONERS

Barbie Liberation Organization

FURTHER INSIGHT

YouTube clip of the BLO action

http://trb.la/xaKnQw

Video Data Bank clip of the BLO action

http://trb.la/zztsYp

David Firestone, “While Barbie Talks
Tough, G.I.Joe Goes Shopping,"
NY Times, Dec. 31, 1993.

http://trb. Ia/Aydu02

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mike Bonanno

282

“The surreptitious
introduction of
poetically enhanced
products to store
shelves is a sure-fire
way of delivering
subversive content
to even the peskiest
demographic.”

On Christmas day in 1993, kids were finding more than they
bargained for under their trees: Mattel’s new talking Barbie
dolls growled “Dead men tell no lies,” while Hasbro ’s macho
GI Joe’s chirped “I love to shop with you.”

Enter the Barbie Liberation
Organization, a self-described
group of “veterans against war
toys” and “concerned parents”
who claimed responsibility for
switching the voice boxes on
hundreds of the toys nation-
wide. A full week of news and
talk radio ensued, sparking
widespread discussion about
gender stereotypes.

The action was a response
to a very dumb PR move Mat-
tel had made nearly a year
earlier, when it released a new
talking Barbie that said “Math is hard.” Outraged feminists
thrashed them in the press, and behind closed doors a small
group of folks began plotting revenge. What else could Barbie
say? One participant in the informal brainstorm sessions — an
octogenarian Hungarian holocaust survivor who went by the
nickname “Gyongi” — didn’t care about Barbie: the problem
for her was Gljoe. A quick trip to the toy store confirmed that GI
Joe talked too, and a plot was hatched: all that was required to
make these toys into gender-bending Trojan horses was a voice-
box switcheroo. Armed with soldering irons, screwdrivers, epoxy
and sweat, the Barbie Liberation Organization went to work.

The next step was to recruit other BLO members, who pur-
chased the toys in different cities, and sent them in for surgery.
Each toy was carefully removed from its packaging, “fixed,”
and returned. “Shop droppers” then put them right back on
the store shelves they came from (without getting a refund, so
nobody could call it stealing) .

But this wasn’t to be a simple spectacle, it was to be a media
spectacle, so an elaborate press plan was hatched. Along with
each repackaged toy they included a doctored instruction

CASE: The Barbie Liberation Organization

Challenging the gender norms that they were designed to uphold.

sheet, complete with the numbers of local and national press,
and a voicemail number for the BLO. The idea was that kids
would open their toys, parents would call the numbers, and
the media would cover it.

The day before Christmas, the BLO sent out a press re-
lease claiming responsibility for the action. The hope was that
on Christmas day, when the media started getting phone calls
from real people who’d gotten the toys, they’d put two and
two together.

In case even that didn’t do the trick, the BLO built ad-
ditional layers of redundancy into the media plan. They re-
cruited two kids — one in San Diego, California, and one in
Albany, New York — who were willing to put on a little show
for the news cameras, thereby “proving” that the action was re-
ally happening. Lastly, they kept a stash of extra dolls on hand
and stood ready to scramble to the toy stores nearest to any
media who called their voicemail. When the media called, the
BLO located the nearest store to the caller, got there as fast
as they could, and put an altered toy on the shelf. On at least
one occasion, BLO members were still in the store when the
journalist arrived. They watched him find the toy, test it, and
triumphantly purchase it — proof-positive of the power and
reach of the Barbie Liberation Organization.

The stunt worked because the altered toys were funny, surpris-
ing and revealing. There were cute kids involved, which helped
make it more media-genic, as did the name recognition of two
American icons: Barbie and GI Joe. The event made a huge
media splash and had everyone talking about what was wrong
with teaching these stereotypes to our kids.

THEORIES

Commodity Fetishism p. 218
Society of the Spectacle p. 266

WHY IT WORKED

CASE: The Barbie Liberation Organization

283

WHAT DIDN’T WORK The BLO didn’t directly translate attention into action: it was

an isolated prank without direct links to an ongoing cam-
paign. This kind of hit-and-run tactic has an impact, but it
arguably could have been more effective with the right cam-
paign tie-ins.

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Identity correction p. 60
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Distributed action p. 32

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Reframe p. 168
Show, don't tell p. 174
Use the materials at hand web
Consider your audience p. 118
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
Seek common ground p. 120

SHOP-DROPPING: The surreptitious introduction of poetically
enhanced products to store shelves is a sure-fire way of deliver-
ing subversive content to even the peskiest demographic. In
the BLO’s case, the shop-dropping is just the foundation upon
which a major media spectacle was built.

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FOR THEM: Do the media’s work for them.
The BLO’s success relied not just on a “sticky” prank, but on
thoughtfully crafted press releases, video news releases, and
having people ready to be interviewed. It was an artful mar-
riage of creative storytelling and do-it-yourself publicity.

MAKE YOUR OWN MYTHS: Make your own myths: Exaggerate.
Don’t be afraid to make it sound bigger than it is. There were
only about fifty dolls that made it to store shelves in three
states: but the BLO said 300 in fifty states. No problem. The
next Christmas, when the media came knocking, the BLO had
done “thousands more” with no effort whatsoever.

MAKE IT FUNNY: A video news release showing Barbie dolls with
soldering irons operating on GI Joes had TV anchors giggling
like kids in between segments. With smiles like that, even con-
servative commentators were embracing the content.

284

CASE: The Barbie Liberation Organization

YOU

WANT

TELL

PEOPLE

THE

TRUTH,

MAKE

THEM

LAUGH,

OTHERWISE

THEY'LL

KILL

YOU

— Oscar Wilde

in Seattle

WHEN

November 30, 1999

WHERE

Seattle

PRACTITIONERS

Ruckus Society
Direct Action Network
Art & Revolution
Rainforest Action Network
AFL-CIO

Alliance of Community Trainers

FURTHER INSIGHT

This is What Democracy Looks Like
[ documentary film). Big Noise Films, 2000.

http://trb.la/Asw04E

Elizabeth Martinez, “Where was the
color in Seattle? Looking for reasons
why the Great Battle was so white."
Colorlines Magazine. March 20, 2000.

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Sellers

Hundreds of feet in the air, four climbers from Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society hang a giant banner
off of a construction crane on the eve of the mass street protests against the WTO, Seattle, 1999.

In 1999, the World Trade Organization decided to hold global
capitalism’s board meeting in Seattle, WA. Most Americans
had never heard of the WTO before, but savvy organizers
across a spectrum of single-issue silos, including labor, envi-
ronmental, human rights and others, decided that they would
team up and act like a movement for a change. Our critiques
of neoliberalism varied widely and there were both reformers
and abolitionists in our ranks, but we were united in the recog-
nition that the meeting represented a potent symbolic target
for anyone challenging the juggernaut of undemocratic global
corporate power.

Radicals and liberals agreed early on that a healthy inside/
outside strategy was called for. A critical mass of activists be-
gan organizing, recruiting and training together to attempt a
many-thousands-strong blockade of the WTO ministerial. We
believed that if we could achieve the tactical victory of a mass
shutdown of the WTO’s coming-out party, it would strengthen
the hands of everyone working against corporate globalization.

Scores of affinity groups organized themselves into thirteen
“clusters” and through a highly functional (and democratic)

286

CASE: Battle in Seattle

“On the day of the
event , we surprised
everyone, even
ourselves "

spokescouncil, hammered out a plan to capture the key
intersections around the Seattle Convention Center in a
massive nonviolent blockade. And so, in the predawn darkness
of November 30, 5,000 direct actionistas marched through
the streets of Seattle toward their targets. Each individual
action had its own logic and narrative. Each would have stood
on its own as extraordinary. When connected together, they
became unstoppable.

The action frame we chose was carnival-protest, equal parts
communicative and concrete see PRINCIPLE: Make your actions
both concrete and communicative. Outside the stodgy corporate
meeting, a giant dance party broke out, complete with marching
bands, dancers, theater troupes, giant puppets, radical cheer-
leaders, a phalanx of 300 turtles and even Christmas carolers.
Thousands of folks joined
together (with hands and
chains) around key entrances
and intersections, preventing
delegates from entering (that
was the instrumental part). It
could have looked threatening,
but with all the celebratory art and solidarity, we looked beau-
tiful and human doing it. Our theme was “Another World Is
Possible” and we were living it out.

By morning, 5,000 more folks, inspired by the audacity
and courage of these artful actions, had spontaneously joined
the human wall around the WTO. Teamsters and turtles were
literally dancing together in the streets. A few hours later, as
the Seattle police unleashed a torrent of tear gas and pepper
spray to crack the blockade, 50,000 labor marchers defied
their own marshals and reinforced us with a sea of humanity.
The biggest business meeting on Earth had been shut down, a
tactical victory most thought impossible. And the rest, as they
say, is history.

The impact of Seattle was enormous. It launched the
global justice movement in the Global North. It showed that a
people’s victory against global capital was possible. It created a
teachable moment — for the public, on the WTO and the dark
side of corporate globalization, and also for the movement,
showcasing direct and mass action tactics and a carnivalesque
sensibility that are still influential today, as well as training a
new wave of actionistas who have gone on to play critical roles
across the next decade of progressive movements.

THEORIES

Homo q & hamas p. 236
Points of intervention p. 250
Action logic p. 208
Cycles of social movements web
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260

CASE: Battle in Seattle

287

WHY IT WORKED

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Mass street action p. 68
Direct action p. 32
Banner hang p. 12
Street theater web
Creative disruption p. 18
Strategic nonviolence p. 88

We had a great democratic process that let us hammer out
agreements on both actions and messaging frameworks that
thousands of people signed onto. We picked the fight early
and framed it well. We planned for nine months. We started
the media story months in advance. On the day of the event,
we surprised everyone, even ourselves.

Where was the color in Seattle? When your two most popular
battle cries are “This is what democracy looks like ! ” and “An-
other world is possible,” and most of the people chanting them
are white, then you have a serious problem. There were some
amazing young organizers of color with us in the streets of
Seattle, but a “global justice movement” must be inclusive and
share leadership with those folks on the front lines of injustice.
In Seattle we came up short.

Victim of our own tactical success. The global justice movement
spent the next couple of years trying to repeat Seattle’s
tactical magic, trying to shut down every major summit we
could reach, from Quebec to Qatar. But you can’t exploit the
element of surprise twice.

Inability to maintain nonviolent discipline. Small groups of pro-
testers engaging in black bloc tactics smashed the windows
of banks and Starbucks and thereby gave the cops the moral
authority to use violence against all of us, and the corporate
media all the ammunition they needed to tell the story they
wanted to tell.

BLOCKADE: The shut-down of the WTO blended both soft and
hard blockade technologies. Of the thousands who partici-
pated, all but a few hundred simply joined hands and stood
shoulder to shoulder with their comrades to prevent delegates
from getting through. However, several hundred people used
lock-boxes, chains, barrels, and other hard blockade technol-
ogy to hold key intersections where we knew our people power
would be lightest. With art and costumes and good cheer, we
made these gear-intensive technical “lockdowns” look beauti-
ful, not scary.

288

CASE: Battle in Seattle

THINK NARATIVELY When 50,000 lefties take the streets to con-
front corporate power, you’re going to get 50,000 different cri-
tiques. To try to unify all that message diversity, we designed a
“framing action.” The day before the big protest, four climb-
ers dropped a massive banner 300 feet above Seattle’s main
commuter highway that framed the action as a choice between
democracy and the WTO. The photo of the banner went glob-
al on the day of the mass action, summing up in stark and
simplest terms what Battle in Seattle was all about.

ONE NO, MANY YESSES Whether your YES! was the freedom to
keep making the Roquefort cheese that your great grandfa-
ther made or to continue living in an ancient rainforest unpoi-
soned by Big Oil or to keep your good union job and not have
it outsourced to a sweatshop, you shared a NO ! with billions of
others. This “unity in diversity” was present on the streets with
Teamsters and Turtles linking arms, and in the “movement of
movements” that organized the protest.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 48
Escalate strategically p. 134
Be both concrete and
communicative p. 154
Choose tactics that support
your strategy p. 112
If you're not uncomfortable, your
coalition is too small web

USE YOUR RADICAL FRINGE TO SLIDE THE OVERTON WINDOW:

Before the WTO uprising in Seattle, relatively few people in
the Global North questioned the process of corporate glo-
balization and so-called “free” trade. Seattle jolted the entire
Overton window sharply to the left. Fair trade and other alter-
natives moved out of the fringe. The idea that militant mass
action could stop corporate globalization in its tracks became
not only thinkable, but popular. Every major summit between
Seattle and 9/11 was met with mass protest.

CASE: Battle in Seattle

289

CASE STUDY:

W Bidder 70

(Tim DeChristopher)

WHEN

December 2008

WHERE

Salt Lake City, Utah

PRACTITIONERS

Tim deChristopher

FURTHER INSIGHT

Tim DeChristopher, “I do not want
mercy, I want you to join me,"
Common Dreams July 27, 2011

http://trb.la/wAqNPf

Video: “Posing as a bidder, Utah student
disrupts government auction"

http://trb.la/xx1MbW

Peaceful Uprising, “Frequently Asked
Questions about Tim DeChristopher"

http://trb.la/xOIKVY

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andy Bichlbaum
Duncan Meisel

290

In December 2008, word got out about an illegal Bureau of Land
Management auction of oil and gas leases for drilling near
beautiful Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah. The
auction was Bush’s parting gift to his good friends in industry.
Student Tim DeChristopher set out with the intention of
physically disrupting the event, but as he walked through the
door, he was taken by surprise when an attendant asked him if
he was there to bid. “Why, yes, yes I am,” he answered, and the
attendant gave Tim a paddle. In Tim’s words:

Once I was in there, I realized that any kind of speech
or disruption wasn’t going to be very effective. But I
saw pretty quickly how I could have a pretty major im-
pact on the way this worked. It took me a little bit of
time to build up my courage, knowing what the con-
sequences would be — and then I started bidding and
started driving up the prices. But I knew I could be do-
ing more. So then I started winning bids, and disrupt-
ing it as clearly as I could. 1

Tim won about a dozen lots in a row — until the auctioneer
realized something was wrong, suspended the proceedings,
and had Tim arrested.

After Obama took office, his administration investigated the
auction for “irregularities,” and a federal judge cancelled the sales.
Tim’s action — which singlehandedly saved many precious acres of
Utah wilderness from destruction — stands out as one of the most
inspired and successful acts of civil disobedience in recent history.

At his sentencing hearing, Tim addressed the presiding
judge to explain his actions. He concluded his remarks with
the following words:

I want you to join me in standing up for the right and
responsibility of citizens to challenge their government.

I want you to join me in valuing this country’s rich his-
tory of nonviolent civil disobedience. If you share those
values but think my tactics are mistaken, you have the

CASE: Bidder 70

power to redirect them. You can sentence me to a wide
range of community service efforts that would point my
commitment to a healthy
and just world down a differ-
ent path. You can have me
work with troubled teens,
as I spent most of my career
doing. . . . You can steer that
commitment if you agree
with it, but you can’t kill it.

This is not going away.

At this point of unimagina-
ble threats on the horizon,
this is what hope looks like.

In these times of a morally bankrupt government that
has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks
like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love
looks like, and it will only grow. The choice you are
making today is what side are you on . 1 2

“Tim’s action
stands out as
one of the most
inspired and
successful acts of
civil disobedience
in recent history.”

After reading his statement, Tim was sentenced to two
years in federal prison.

Tim took bold and effective action, and then used the
coverage and attention his act generated as a platform to both
defend his action and call for bolder action by the climate
movement in general. His closing statement to the judge, ex-
cerpted above, became a rallying cry for other organizing ef-
forts — like the Tar Sands Action against the Keystone XL
Pipeline later that year — and countless other acts of civil dis-
obedience. Tim and his allies stood strong in defense of his
actions, effectively demonstrating why civil disobedience was
necessary to stop the climate crisis.

CREATIVE DISRUPTION: Tim intervened directly in the proceed-
ings that would have sold off beloved public lands to the oil

1 Democracy Now! “Posing as a bidder, Utah student disrupts government auction,” December 22, 2008.

2 Tim DeChristopher, “/ do not want mercy, I want you to join me," Common Dreams, July 27, 2011.

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250

Action logic p. 20

The commons p. 220

The tactics of everyday life p. 268

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

CASE: Bidder 70

291

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Infiltration p. 64
Direct action p. 32

companies. He hit upon an effective way to make sure the auc-
tion did not proceed (basically inventing a new kind of cre-
ative disruption on the spot), and then defended that action
without compromise.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Choose your target wisely p. 114
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
Escalate strategically p. 134
Turn the tables p. 190
This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 188
Anger works best when you have
the moral high ground p. 96
One no, many yesses web

GET ARRESTED IN AN INTELLIGENT WAY: The case against Tim
has provided him with a very large platform to call for further
civil disobedience. Tim and his allies used every step of his
case to attack the political system and economic interests that
allow climate change to happen. His powerful final statement
to the court, and the jail time he subsequently served, are the
clearest examples of this.

CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE: Even when given the chance, Tim
did not stand up and harangue the crowd of oil men, knowing
such a crude disruption would be futile. Instead, he opted to
do something seemingy compliant, but ultimately deeply dis-
ruptive: he played along with the bidding process until it be-
came clear that he had no intention of paying for all the leases
he’d won. Then he turned his attention to another, more dis-
persed audience: activists who would be inspired by his ex-
ample, and the public whose sympathies could shift toward
greater support for action on climate change see PRINCIPLE:
Shift the spectrum of allies.

292

CASE: Bidder 70

"... those who write the rules are those who profit from the status quo. If we want to change that status quo, we might
have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make
sure we don't make any substantial change." Portrait by Robert Shetterly/ www.americanswhotellthetruth.org

CASE: Bidder 70

293

Donor Show

WHEN

June 1, 2007

WHERE

Broadcast in the Netherlands
by the Dutch public
broadcaster BNN.

PRACTITIONERS

Dutch broadcaster BNN and Endemol
Director Paul Romer
Laurens Drillich, BNN Chairman

FURTHER INSIGHT

De G rote Donorshow website

http://sites.bnn.nl/page/donorshow

CONTRIBUTED BY

Silas Harrebye

De Grote Donorshow, a hoax TV program presented as a reality
show, stands as one of the most effective and unique public
awareness campaigns in recent years. The premise of the show
was that a terminally ill woman would donate her kidney to
the most worthy person of a group of people needing kidney
transplants. She would make her selection based on how the
contestants answered a series of questions, much like a dating
program. Viewers were able to weigh in via text message on
whom they thought should receive the life-saving kidney.

Even before it was aired, the show provoked much heated
discussion. Soon media across the Netherlands and beyond
were debating the ethics of waiting lists and the propriety of
turning organ donation into public entertainment. On June
1, 2007, when the show finally aired, millions of viewers world-
wide tuned in to watch.

The surprising twist to an already spectacular and highly
controversial program was that it was all a hoax. Just before
the alleged cancer patient was about to choose the lucky re-
cipient of her kidney, the host announced that the “cancer
patient” was actually a hired actor. The entire program had
been staged to raise awareness about the insufficient number
of organ donors in the country. He then announced that the
people who were performing as competitors to receive a kid-
ney were, however, real patients awaiting kidney donors.

Within a day, 30,000 donor registration forms were request-
ed. A month after the show aired, 7,300 new donors were regis-
tered by the Dutch donor registration. In Denmark alone, 700
citizens registered as donors the day after the program was
aired — fifteen times the average on a regular Saturday. The
show won an International Emmy for non-scripted entertain-
ment.

WHY IT WORKED This stunt was successful because the TV network used its

prestige as a broadcaster to send a powerful political message.
The cautionary glimpse at how the future might look forced
the viewers to reflect on their own agency as witnesses to the
disgusting spectacle of people competing for organ donations.

The stunt worked by breaking the implicit contract between

294 CASE: The Big Donor Show

broadcaster and viewer to make clear distinctions between
truth and fiction. What justified the prank is that while the
show itself wasn’t real, the issues that it addressed were. The
act of deception served to expose a very real need that was not
being met, with the spectators forced to confront their own
agency to address the issue.

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Society of the Spectacle p. 266
Points of intervention p. 250

HOAX: The hoax is not only an effective tactic to get an issue
on the agenda, it is also capable of causing a type of embar-
rassment that not only provokes reflection, but forces us to
reflect on our most deeply held beliefs and take action. It lures
people in and exposes them to a subversive idea when they are
most vulnerable. In this case, it also pointed toward a practical
way of responding to the issue it raised.

KEY TACTIC

used

THE REAL ACTION IS YOUR TARGET’S REACTION: Researchers and
politicians who had been quick to denounce the show and
lament its social implications were forced to revisit their initial
diagnoses, thus offering useful meta-reflection on the event,
their own role as commentators, and the future of reality TV.
Millions of ordinary viewers were forced to do the same.

BE AN ETHICAL PRANKSTER A lot of people felt misled after the
show, and the trustworthiness of the channel might have suf-
fered, but the positive outcome cannot be denied. So a few
questions remain: do the ends justify the means? and how do
you weigh competing causes or principles? — both classical
activist dilemmas.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Bring the issue home p. 106

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Show, don't tell p. 174

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FOR THEM: The donor show gave journal-
ists around the world an excuse to cover the critical lack of
organ donors. Many important issues have the same strategic
challenge: they are chronic problems rather than acute crises,
and therefore do not live up to the criteria for what makes
news. If you add an unexpected twist to a good story with a
clear and provocative point, as the Big Donor Show did, you
provide the hook the media needs.

CASE: The Big Donor Show

295

CASE STUDY:

Billionaires for Bush

WHEN

2000-2009
with biggest spike in 2004

WHERE

U.S.A.

EPIGRAPH

“Shut up! You are not helping
the President get re-elected.
You are making the Republican
Party look like a bunch of out-
of-touch elitists! Assholes!”

-Email from an exasperated Republican

PRACTITIONERS

Billionaires for Bush
Billionaires for Wealthcare
United for a Fair Economy
Ladies Against Women

CONTRIBUTED BY

Jeremy Varon
Andrew Boyd
Brian Fairbanks

The “Billionaires’’ used wit, hijinx and great duds to sneak their radical critique of crony capitalism into the corporate
media. Photo by London Nordeman.

“Some people call you the elite,” George W. Bush joked to
his wealthy funders, “I call you my base.” Whether candidate
Bush meant it as a joke or not, the Billionaires for Bush (B4B)
campaign used humor, street theater and creative media ac-
tions to show the country how true the quip was. Working to
expose how the Republican Party serves the interests of the
super-rich, the Billionaires also addressed the broader issues
of economic inequality and corporate greed.

An early version of the campaign in 2000, “Billionaires
for Bush (or Gore),” had spread virally via the internet and
mainstream media exposure. It rebranded itself for the 2004
election, taking as its crusade the defeat of Bush. The New
York City chapter took the lead, assembling talented volun-
teers, among them professional designers, media producers,
and actors. It then put the campaign pieces in place. A stylish
logo swapped the Republican elephant with a piggy bank
stuffed with bills. Satirical slogans — “Repeal the First
Amendment,” “Free the Forbes 400,” “Corporations are peo-
ple too” — adorned bumper stickers, buttons, and a slick
website, mimicking the look of Bush-Cheney propaganda. A

296

CASE: Billionaires for Bush

songwriter produced tuneful renditions of what the super-
wealthy really think, performed by meticulously rehearsed
singers. The members themselves adopted personae, with
names and costumes to match, spoofing iconic versions of
the .01 percent: the Monopoly - style robber baron (Phil T.
Rich), the dim-witted heiress (Alexis Anna Rolls), the trust-
fund fuck-up (Monet Oliver D’Place), and so on.

Soon, the Billionaires could
be found talking down to “the
little people” at Bush-Cheney
campaign events, left-wing ral-
lies, and street corners. They
could also be found all over the
mainstream media, garnering
thousands of hits, including
multiple features in the New
York Times and on network and
cable TV. Even the chant “Watch
more Fox News, then you’ll
share our right-wing views!”
made it to air... on Fox News.

Media coverage was generat-
ed by carefully planned hoaxes,
such as the appearance, to a
throng of adoring billionaires,
of a Karl Rove impostor at a GOP fundraiser. Other times,
the campaign outsmarted the authorities to attract the media
glare, such as when it held a croquet match on Central Park’s
“Great Lawn,” from which a half-million anti-Bush demonstra-
tors had been banned by New York’s mayor. The media was
smitten by the Billionaires’ glamour and charmed by their
say-the-opposite-of-what-you-believe theatrics.

The campaign was designed to be participatory and na-
tional. The core idea was easy both to replicate and embellish.
Activists could download the materials they needed to do
local actions, while a held organizer helped set up chapters in
swing states like Ohio. By late July the hundreds of B4B “bil-
lionaires” from thirty states who showed up to protest at the
Republican National Convention far exceeded the number of
actual billionaires working hard for their President.

Deflated by Bush’s victory, the B4B idea nonetheless lived
on, generating spin-off campaigns such as Billionaires for
Wealthcare, active in the health care debates of 2008-9. Often

“ Some observers
remained fatally
confused as to the
group’s message.
Occasionally ;
true conservatives
begged the
Billionaires not
to make Bush look
bad by being so
brazenly pro-rich.. ”

FURTHER INSIGHT

Billionaires for Bush

http://billionairesforbush.com

Haugerud, Angelique. The Billionaires:
Satirical Political Activism
in America Today. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press, 2013.

Bogad, Larry. “A Place for Protest:
res for Bush Interrupt the
Hegemonologue” in Performance
and Place. Eds, Leslie and Helen
Paris. New York: Palgrave McMillian,
2006. Full article available online at:
http://trb. la/xOOZqz

Boyd, Andrew. “TRUTH ISA VIRUS: Meme
Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush
[or Gore]’’ in Cultural Resistance Reader,
ed. Stephen Duncombe. New York: Verso,
2002. Full article available online at:
http://trb.la/zyXyR6

Haugerud, Angelique. “Neoliberalism,
Satirical Protest, and the 2004 U.S.
Presidential Campaign" in Ethnographies
of Neoliberalism, ed. Carol J.

Greenhouse. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.

THEORIES

Memes p. 242
Ethical spectacle p. 230
The social cure p. 264
Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative power analysis p. 244

CASE

The Clandestine Insurgent
Rebel Clown Army p. 304

CASE: Billionaires for Bush

297

feeling in 2004 like a clever joke in the wilderness, the cam-
paign in fact anticipated many of the core concerns of Occupy
Wall Street and other “Great Recession”-era activism.

WHY IT WORKED

B4B pulled off tricky balancing acts. It was a highly disciplined
media campaign that was also able to invite creative partici-
pation and grow virally. It had a scrappy, DIY feel but used
high-production values, tight messaging, and sex appeal to
wow the media and audiences alike. It addressed serious issues
with irony, humor, and camp. The result was an entertaining
and accessible vehicle for speaking about realities of American
life often ignored in public discourse. The costuming and
alter-ego-tripping was also empowering for the group itself: no
matter one’s station in life, one could become someone impor-
tant and “fabulous” — it was like drag for the middle class. For
all these reasons, the campaign inspired in its participants an
extraordinary level of commitment — to their “characters”
and to the larger struggle for justice.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

Though dedicated to defeating Bush, the Billionaires had no
hard deliverables, like voter turnout. And regardless of the
media exposure, nationally and in swing states, there is no
evidence that B4B messaging actually “swung” voters. The
campaign therefore risked being an in-house joke, best appre-
ciated by those already opposing Bush, or a media curiosity,
ripe for fluff pieces from the campaign trail.

KEY TACTIC

used

DISTRIBUTED ACTION: Well-crafted actions, occurring simulta-
neously in disparate locales, amplified the campaign’s sense
of unity, power, and reach. The B4B repertoire of distributed

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Infiltration p. 64
Mass street action p. 68
Media jacking p. 72
Hoax p. 54

actions included Cheap Labor Day, “Education is not for every-
one Day” at the beginning of the school year, and others. “Dick
Cheney is Innocent Day” began as a national day of action fea-
turing coordinated, candle-lit vigils in front of Cheney’s VP
residence in D.C., state capital buildings, an official Cheney
speaking engagement in Milwaukee, and outside the Fox News
windows in Times Square. Flyers were produced listing all of
ol’ Dick’s many crimes (but protesting how baseless they were,
of course ! ) and made available for easy download, alongside a
national press release

298

CASE: Billionaires for Bush

DETOURNEMENT/CULTURE JAMMING: The Billionaire spectacle
was a mindbending double- or triple-take: apparent Bush sup-
porters, spewing over-the-top pro-Bush rhetoric, were really
Bush opponents, who made the Republicans appear both ve-
nal and ridiculous. Some observers remained fatally confused
as to the group’s message. Occasionally, true conservatives
begged the Billionaires not to make Bush look bad by being
so brazenly pro-rich. Most people, however, soon got the joke:
that the Republicans, despite their populist rhetoric, are a
party of, by, and for the wealthy. Sometimes the Billionaires
“jammed” the earnest culture of the political left. Retorting
“This is what plutocracy looks like!” and “Whose Street? Wall
Street!” to familiar lefty chants, the Billionaires suggested that
progressive advocates of We the People had little inkling of
the wealth and influence they were up against. The Billion-
aires tried to speak truth to — and about — power.

DON’T DRESS LIKE A PROTESTER: The Billionaires were distin-
guished from other anti-Bush activists by their upper-crust
look and ironic messaging, which denounced the Republi-
cans through parodic expressions of reactionary principles.
As something new and different, the campaign avoided the
media’s boredom with covering angry protesters protesting,
well, angrily. The result was media exposure of B4B messaging
vastly disproportionate to the group’s size and resources.

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: Politicians often avoid any direct
reference to their ultimate agenda, especially when their plan
is to plunder. The activist must expose their true intent. This
“unmasking” was central to B4B shtick, and was the basis for
particular actions. In 2005, the Billionaires joined the fight
against Bush’s plan to privatize social security, which would
have been the biggest shift of public capital in history. To dra-
matize this outcome, Billionaires for Bush auctioned off Social
Security in the most public forum available: eBay. The auction
limited bidding to Wall Street bankers and casino operators
and broke down the numbers on exactly what was to be gained
by the wealthy and lost by the rest. Though eBay quickly took
down the auction, more than 25,000 people visited the sale,
and bidding peaked at $99,999,999. For days, media coverage
continued to spread the message: “Billionaires for Bush auc-
tioned off Social Security on eBay.”

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Make it funny web

Brand or be branded p. 104

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Enable don't command p. 132

Delegate p. 122

Show, don't tell p. 174

Think narratively p. 18 6

Create levels of participation web

Balance art and message p. 104

CASE: Billionaires for Bush

299

CASE STUDY:

Citizens’ Posse

WHEN

March 9, 2010

WHERE

Washington, D.C.

PRACTITIONERS

Agit-Pop Communications
Health Care for America Now (HCAN)

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Sellers

In early spring of 2010, the
prospects of the U.S. Con-
gress passing comprehensive
health care reform were look-
ing bleak. The Democrats had
caved on the public option,
the Blue Dogs were turning
red, and Democratic leaders
weren’t sure if they had the
votes to pass anything.

Most of the mainstream
players in the health care reform movement were busy on Cap-
itol Hill “making sausage” while the reform bill grew weaker
and less popular by the day. An edgier wing of health care
reformers, however, were looking to expand the theater of
conflict a la Donald Rumsfeld. We had to remind people why
reform was needed and we knew that if we could expose the
criminal behavior of Big Insurance, they would be convicted
in the court of pubic opinion.

Luckily, a perfect target presented itself. AHIP, the top
health insurance lobbying group, decided to bring their chief
executives and lobbyists together at a fancy hotel in downtown
Washington, D.C., for a summit. They sensed they were close
to total victory. They needed to plot out their final moves,
smoke their final cigars and cut their final backroom deals.

Health Care for America Now (HCAN) — an alliance of
labor unions, the progressive netroots, and a host of commu-
nity-based organizations — hired Agit-Pop to help them go
big, creative, and militant. Our job was to stage a major street
action that would finally tell the story right: Americans want
affordable universal health care; insurance companies don’t
because they’re profiting from a broken system.

We decided to cast the CEOs as organized crime bosses
who bribed politicians, denied health care to the critically ill,
and ran real Death Panels for profit. We cast participants in the
planned rally as a “People’s Posse” which would be composed
of ordinary people called upon to bring these corporate crim-
inals to justice.

Union leaders were skeptical about whether their folks

300

CASE: Citizens’ Posse

WANTED

BY THE
AMERICAN
PEOPLE

David Cordani: CIGNA CEO

CASE N.. 405X2 ti

45,000 COUNTS OF INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER

• deaths incurred in the process of pursuing insurance industry profit

Title 18 US Code § 1112

BREACH OF CONTRACT & FRAUD - denial of promised
coverage paid for by working Americans

Title 25 US Code § 3116

MONEY LAUNDERING - clandestinely transferred $10-20
million dollars to fund attacks designed to deny health coverage

Title 18 US Code § 1956

BRIBERY OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS

Title 18 US Code § 201

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON,
PLEASE NOTIFY YOUR LOCAL OFFICE OF PUBLIC
ACCOUNTABILITY AT CITIZENSPOSSE.COM

Wanted Flyer M2 A
Feb 25. 3010

EXHIBIT II

TO THE AFFIDAVIT OF
THE! -S CITIZENS

FURTHER INSIGHT

Citizens' Posse website

http://citizensposse.com/

Video of the action

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=kMrF0ySI8SE

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative power analysis p. 244

would take to the “posse” frame. But on action day, when
their members saw the “CEO Wanted” posters, Citizens’ Posse
badges and crime scene tape, they quickly wanted in. Our
action had two marches of 1,500 people each converge on the
D.C. Ritz Carlton. At that point, we surrounded the building,
declared it a crime scene, and posted wanted posters of the

CASE: Citizens' Posse

WHY IT WORKED

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76
Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Blockade p. 14
Direct action p. 32

CEOs. We had a rally with rousing speeches about corporate
criminals, which culminated with William McNary deputizing
the crowd by administering the Citizens’ Posse Oath of Office.
Then several union presidents and a VIP posse attempted to
enter the hotel and make citizens’ arrests. Ten VIP deputies
were eventually taken into custody by D.C.’s finest.

As a result, the reform movement got a much-needed shot
in the arm, and we owned the media cycle for a critical day or
two in the homestretch to the vote. The bill (however flawed)
eventually passed.

The action used a clear and powerful frame (corporate
criminals brought to justice by the people) that not only
made it clear who the good and bad guys were, but told a
story for the media. It also gave the 3,000 angry liberals who
showed up a powerful role to play and an animated narra-
tive arc that kept them in motion. Finally, it allowed layers of
creative elaboration (badges, wanted posters, oath of office,
giant crime tape, etc.).

The posse action was designed to empower everyone in
attendance across the board. However, labor insisted that
their presidents play the lead roles throughout the day and be
the center of attention, which led to an unnecessary, long and
mostly boring rally until “The Oath” was administered. Also,
we designed the Citizens’ Posse frame to be easily adaptable by
any organization or movement confronting criminal corporate
behavior, regardless of their issue silo. Unfortunately, no one
has picked it up and used it again.

MASS STREET ACTION: Too often street actions are like dances
that everyone already knows the steps to : (A) march, followed by
rally, with people speechifying from the stage, or (B) set-piece
acts of civil disobedience with everyone singing Kumbaya until
they’re arrested (or worse, ignored). The posse achieved a greater
degree of militancy and dynamism by putting “We the People”
in a heroic role that called for action throughout the action.

302

CASE: Citizens’ Posse

THINK NARRATIVELY: The “posse” framework set up clear good
and bad guys and put a whole universe of iconography and sto-
ry elements at our disposal. All the rally speakers hammered
on the “criminal” behavior of the insurance companies and
their conspiracy with crooked politicians. By deputizing the
crowd, we pulled them into the story and the action in a heroic
role that demanded justice and respect.

USE THE POWER OF RITUAL: The most powerful moment of the
whole action was when the entire 3,000-strong crowd, in call-
and-response style, ritually took the Citizen’s Posse oath:

I solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitu-
tion of the United States against all enemies, foreign
and domestic. [...] In the tradition of citizen posses
throughout American history who in times of need
have been called to service to bring criminals — cor-
porate or otherwise — to justice, I swear to well and
faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I
am about to enter. So help me Jefferson.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Make your actions both concrete

and communicative p. 1 54

Pick battles big enough to matter,

small enough to win web

Anger works best when you have

the moral high ground p. 96

Use powerful metaphors web

Lead with sympathetic characters 146

Reframe p. 168

Re-capture the flag web

SIMPLE RULES LEAD TO GRAND RESULTS: The “citizens’ posse”
concept provided an organic way for individuals to participate
that helped the 3,000-strong mass in the streets operate as a
cohesive whole. The rules were simple — take this oath, put
on this badge, try to bring the corporate criminals to justice
— yet the overall frame it set up for the crowd (and the media
covering it) was grand and powerful.

CASE: Citizens' Posse

303

CASE STUDY:

Clandestine Insurgent Rebel
Clown Army

(CIRCA)

WHEN

2003 -Present

WHERE

London, then global

PRACTITIONERS

Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown
Army Deconstructionist
Institute of Surreal Topology
Deterritorial Support Group

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Jordan

Hoping against hope, clowns ask for their toys back from Nice Mr. Policeman

To some, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA)
might appear to be but a ragged bunch of activists sporting
false noses, a smudge of grease paint, camouflage pants and
bad wigs. And those people may be right. But it is also a highly
disciplined army of professional clowns, a militia of authentic
fools, a battalion of true buffoons.

Art activist John Jordan and colleagues L.M. Bogad, Jen
Verson and Matt Trevelyan founded CIRCA in late 2003 to
welcome arch-clown George W. Bush on his royal visit to
London. CIRCA aimed to be a new methodology of civil
disobedience, merging the ancient art of clowning with con-
temporary tactics of nonviolent direct action. It went on to
be a successful meme and international protest phenomenon,
with self-organized groups taking action in the streets outside
summits and military bases in dozens of countries from
Colombia to New Zealand.

CASE: Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

CIRCA worked with professional clowns to develop a meth-
odology, rebel clowning, that introduced play and games into
the process of political organizing. We developed a series of
trainings that encouraged activists to reprogram their bodies,
to develop their intuition and to “find their clown” — a child-
like state of generosity and spontaneity. Rebel clown trainings
attempted to peel off the activist armor and find the vulnerable
human within.

Emphasizing the inner work of personal transformation
that too many movements ignore, CIRCA viewed both soul
and street as sites of struggle. The deep work of clowning, in-
volving real letting go and finding the absolute spontaneous
self, can have profoundly liberating psychological effects on
participants. CIRCA’s combatants are not meant to pretend to
be clowns, they should be real clowns. Clowning is a state of
being rather than a technique.

It’s a core CIRCA premise that mocking and utterly con-
fusing the enemy can be more powerful than direct confron-
tation. In one instance, a seventy-person-strong gaggle of
clowns walked straight through a line of UK riot cops who,
strangely, could not hold their line. When the video footage
of the event was examined, it turned out that beneath their
visors the cops were laughing too much to be able to concen-
trate. Other clowns filled their pockets with so much strange
junk that it took hours and lots of paper work when stop-and-
searches occurred. A favorite tactic was to walk into army re-
cruitment agencies and, in a clownish way, try to join up, thus
causing so much chaos that the agencies had to close down
for the day, whereupon CIRCA would set up its own shabby
recruitment stall outside.

Turn-of-the-century anarchist Emma Goldman posed this
problem: “how to be one’s self and yet in oneness with others,
to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one’s own
characteristic qualities.” CIRCA bridged that divide, allowing
participants to discover their own inner clown while at the
same time wearing a “uniform” that made them feel part of
a strongly bonded group.

FURTHER INSIGHT

CIRCA website

www.clownarmy.org

Kolonel Klepto and Major Up Evil. “The
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
goes to Scotland via a few other Places."
In Shut Them Down!: The G 8, Gleneagles
2005 and the Movement of Movements,
edited by David Harvie, David Watts,
and Ben Trott. Autonomedia, 2006.

L.M. Bogad, “The Clandestine Insurgent
Rebel Clown Army." Journal of Aesthetics
and Protest Issue 3, June 2004.

http://www.journalofaesthetic-

sandprotest.org/3/bogad.htm

L. M. Bogad, “Carnivals Against Capital:
Radical Clowning and the Global Justice
Movement," Social Identities: Journal
for the Study of Race, Nation and
Culture 16.4 (Summer 2010): 537-557.

John Jordan, “Notes whilst walking on
‘How to break the heart of empire."
European Institute for Progressive
Cultural Policies. August 2005.

http://trb.la/z45r4E

THEORIES

Ethical Spectacle p. 230
Ham oq Sc homos p. 236
Memes p. 242

Rebel clowning was a gateway for lots of people to get involved
in radical politics who were otherwise put off by its serious-
ness. For many recruits, it was their first experience of civil
disobedience, but the playfulness and mask-like make-up em-

WHY IT WORKED

CASE: Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

305

powered diem to be deeply disobedient, often in unexpect-
edly absurd and creative ways.

Clowning is a state

WHAT DIDN’T WORK There 8 nothing worse than a f ^

bad clown — and being a good Ul U J “

one is hard. Anyone who has than a technique.”

seen the great clowns of the

world — Chaplin, say, or Keaton — realizes how difficult an
art it is to master. Less is often more. As rebel clowning be-
came popular with activists in the mid 2000s, many wanted
to join up with CIRCA but few were prepared to follow the
intense training. Many bad “hippie” clowns made it onto the
street. CIRCA founders also underestimated how hard it was
to be a good clown, and in their rush to build mass actions of
hundreds of clowns, they forgot to start small and build.

Insurgent Clowns on a stroll.

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Direct action p. 32
Creative disruption p. 18
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Moss street action p. 68

CARNIVAL-PROTEST: The use of carnivalesque forms of resis-
tance was a key tactic for the global anti-capitalist mass actions
of the 1990s. CIRCA took this carnival spirit deeper into the
individual mind and body of the activist. Clowning exists on
the borderlines, dancing delicately on the edge of chaos, some-
where between life and art, being and pretending. Clowns are
both fearsome and innocent, wise and stupid, healers and
laughing stocks, scapegoats and subversives. They take this

306

CASE: Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

carnivalesque spirit with them wherever they go, infecting the
body politic with insurrectionary dreams. When a crisis hits
a culture, perhaps it is in these gray zones of creative uncer-
tainty that we might find the answers.

USE ABSURDITY TO UNDERMINE THE AURA OF AUTHORITY: Ridicule
and absurdity are powerful tools against authority. To be effec-
tive, authority has to be perceived as such, otherwise people
would never obey its commands. On the other hand, who ever
takes a clown seriously? Rebel clowning used this slippery di-
chotomy to great effect, turning the tables on authority in the
street by posing in mock-serious fashion next to lines of cops, as
well as at the highest levels of power, by pointing out the clown-
ish behavior of George W. Bush and other authority figures.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Anyone can act p. 98
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Escalate strategically p. 134

GET ARRESTED IN AN INTELLIGENT WAY: Watching police hand-
cuff and bundle clowns into police vans is always entertaining
for passersby, begging the question: What did the clowns do
wrong? What is this all about? An arrested clown also makes
for very mediagenic images. By staying in character during the
whole process of an arrest, including giving their clown army
names (e.g., Private Joke) and addressees (e.g., the big top in
the sky) as their real identity, rebel clowns caused much mirth
and havoc in the police stations.

REFRAME: Rebel clowning helped reframe the media images of
protests during the big summit mobilizations of the mid 1990s.
A colorful band of disobedient clowns could easily capture
the limelight and shift the narrative away from “violent clash-
es” and smashed windows.

CASE: Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

307

CASE STUDY:

Colbert roasts Bush

WHEN

April 29, 2006

WHERE

Washington, D.C.

PRACTITIONERS

Stephen Colbert

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: Colbert Roasts Bush - ZOO 6
White House Correspondents' Dinner

http://trb.la/xMMDiE

A full transcript of the speech is
available in the back of Colbert's book:
Stephen Colbert, I Am America (and So
Can You!] New York: Grand Central
Publishing Hachette Book Group, 2007)

Salon, “The Truthiness Hurts,"
May 1, 200 6

http://trb.la/yOvOvl

CONTRIBUTED BY

Elisabeth Ginsberg

Every year, a celebrity, often a comedian, is invited to roast
the President at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,
an annual gathering of journalists who regularly cover the
White House and the President. But it isn’t every year that the
President has “that look that he’s ready to blow,” 1 as an aide of
President Bush expressed it after comedian Stephen Colbert
delivered his speech in 2006.

Speak

Truthiness

To Power

Stephen Colbert performing at the White House correspondents' dinner, with his primary foil, President Bush, sitting
nearby. The audience's uncomfortable refusal to give in and laugh at Colbert's jokes, perfectly captured in this photo,
underscored the seriousness of Colbert’s attack.

Colbert delivered his lines with militant irony, professing
to approve of the very things about Bush he was in fact attack-

308

CASE: Colbert roasts Bush

ing. He satirized a host of topics including the typically Repub-
lican opposition to big governments by referencing the war in
Iraq: “I believe the government that governs best is the govern-
ment that governs least. And by these standards, we have set
up a fabulous government in Iraq,” he said. He then turned to
Bush’s decreasing popularity:

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Political jujitsu web

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying that
this man has a thirty-two percent approval rating. But
guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls... We
know that polls are just a collection of statistics that re-
flect what people are thinking in “reality.” And reality
has a well-known liberal bias.

While Colbert’s mock defense of Bush took up most of
the sixteen minute-long speech, he didn’t spare the gathered
press corps either: “As excited as I am to be here with the pres-
ident, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media
that is destroying America. With the exception of Fox News.
Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president’s
side, and the vice president’s side,” he said before reviewing
“the rules”:

Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions.
He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those
decisions, and you people of the press type those
decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em
through a spell check and go home. Get to know your
family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel
you got kicking around in your head. You know, the
one about the intrepid Washington reporter with
the courage to stand up to the Administration? You
know, fiction!

Colbert’s sarcastic performance was broadcast live on the
cable network C-SPAN and viewed on YouTube 2.7 million
times in the first forty-eight hours after it was posted. By call-
ing to account some of the world’s most powerful people as

1 Paul Bedard, “Skewering comedy skit angers Bush and aides,” U.S. News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060501/1whwatch.htm

2 Dan Savage, "Dan Savage Interviews Frank Rich Before Frank Rich
Interviews Stephen Sondheim," The Stranger.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/dan-savage-interviews-frank-rich/Content?oid=2535771

CASE: Colbert roasts Bush

309

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Identity Correction p. 60

they sat, grinning uncomfortably, in the camera’s glare, he af-
firmed his status as someone who speaks “truthiness” to power.

If his intent was of to shame the president and the press
into improvement, it’d be hard to call it a success. But judg-
ing from online discussions of the speech, a good portion of
the public experienced it as an empowering emperor-has-no-
clothes moment. Liberal columnist Dan Savage, for example,
referred to it as “one of the things that kept people like me
sane during the darkest days of the Bush years.” For Bush’s
critics, the speech felt like a victory. As with all victories, it was
important for morale.

An overall comic tension was created by the incongruity be-
tween the celebratory format — with Bush himself only a few
feet from the podium — and the scathing content of Colbert’s
speech. To many people, especially Colbert fans, it was hilari-
ous. However, relatively few people in the room laughed or
otherwise applauded Colbert during his speech. The strength
of Colbert’s ironic delivery was that to laugh was to admit that
you got the joke — and the joke was on Bush, the Administra-
tion and the entire press corps. The audience’s uncomfort-
able refusal to give in and laugh at Colbert’s jokes thus indi-
rectly affirmed the seriousness of his attack.

Aware that his real audience was not the people present
at the dinner see PRINCIPLE: Play to the audience that isn’t
there, Colbert managed to deliver his entire performance
with a minimum amount of comforting feedback from the
audience. It worked — but only because he had the confi-
dence and professionalism to pull it off.

DETOURNEMENT/CULTURE JAM: For his performance, Colbert
adopted the role of the character that he plays on his satirical
news show, the Colbert Report. This same-name persona — whom
Colbert has described in many interviews as a “well-intentioned,
poorly informed, high-status idiot” — is carefully modeled on
typical male Fox News hosts such as Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hanni-
ty. Because the artifice of Colbert’s persona is obvious, there is
no deception of the audience. Yet his critique remains indirect.
It requires that the audience draw the conclusions.

CASE: Colbert roasts Bush

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM: Instead of directly challenging Bush’s
reasoning, Colbert ridiculed it by feigning total agreement.
Enthusiastically extrapolating from Bush’s statements in ways
Bush would not, Colbert carried the unspoken assumptions
through to their presumably logical conclusions: “The great-
est thing about this man is that he’s steady. You know where
he stands,” Colbert said about Bush. “He believes the same
thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday — no matter
what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man’s beliefs
never will,” Colbert concluded. It was the seeming logical out-
come of Bush’s own reasoning but at the same time, of course,
it was unacceptable to Bush, as it really pointed out the illogic
of Bush’s “logic.”

USE CHARACTERS: Taking on a character enabled Colbert to
attack and ridicule the president in ways that would not have
been permitted to the outright preacher, politician, or social
reformer.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Play to the audience that isn’t there p. 160
Show, don't tell p. 174
The real action is your target's
reaction web

Balance art and message p. 100
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
Choose your target wisely p. 114
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Everyone has balls of steel p. 136
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
Kill them with kindness p. 140
Reframe p. 168

CASE: Colbert roasts Bush

311

in the Cage

WHEN

1992-1993

WHERE

Various museums across
Europe and North America

PRACTITIONERS

Coco Fusco
Guillermo Go mez-Peha

FURTHER INSIGHT

Coco Fusco's website

http://www.thing.net/~cocofusco/

Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s website

http://www.pochanostra.com/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Elisabeth Ginsberg

Performance artists Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Coco Fusco
started their “The Couple in the Cage” tour five hundred
years after Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas.
For two years, they travelled through various Western metrop-
olises, presenting themselves as undiscovered Amerindians
from an island in the Gulf of Mexico that had somehow been
overlooked for five centuries. They called their homeland
Guatinau and themselves Guatinauis.

Two undiscovered Amerindians visit Columbus Plaza, Madrid, Spain. Photo by Peter Barker.

Exhibited in a cage, the couple performed “traditional
tasks,” which ranged from sewing voodoo dolls to watching
television. A donation box in front of the cage indicated that
for a small fee, the female Guatinaui would perform a tradi-
tional dance (to rap music) , the male Guatinaui would tell au-
thentic Amerindian stories (in a made-up language) , and they
would both pose with visitors. At the Whitney Museum in New
York, sex was added to the spectacle when visitors were offered
a peek at “authentic Guatinaui male genitals” for five dollars.

Next to the cage were two official-looking guards ready to
answer visitors’ questions, feed the Guatinauis, and take them
to the bathroom on leashes. In addition to the authority of
the guards, an institutional framework was evoked by didactic

312

CASE: The Couple in the Cage

panels listing highlights from the history of exhibiting non-
Western peoples and a simulated Encyclopedia Britannica en-
try with a fake map of the Gulf of Mexico showing Guatinau.

Aside from the authority provided by the various museum
venues, everything on display was blatantly theatrical and
clicheed: the Guatinauis had their skulls measured, were
fed bananas, and were described as “specimens,” among
other things.

The performances were filmed and compiled in a docu-
mentary titled The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey.
Whereas the couple was the object on display during the live
performance, the audience became the object on display
during the documentary. While Fusco and Gomez-Pena
adopted the roles of the caged natives, they were simultaneously
scrutinizing the audience’s responses. And what they found
was surprising: Despite their intent to create an over-the-
top satirical commentary on Western concepts of the exotic,
primitive Other, it turned out that a substantial portion of the
audience believed in the authenticity of the Guatinauis.

In an article about the performance, Fusco argues that the
audience’s immediate response reveals their fundamental be-
liefs: “In such encounters with the unexpected, people’s de-
fense mechanisms are less likely to operate with their normal
efficiency; caught off-guard, their beliefs are more likely to
rise to the surface.” 1

Seemingly making the same assumption, the documentary
presents the audience’s reactions as indirect proof that racist
beliefs — non-Western people are primitive, inferior, and es-
sentially different from Western people — permeate our post-
colonial society. Whether or not this is true, The Couple in the
Cage persuasively argues that colonial ideas continue to influ-
ence our approach to non-Western cultures.

It was nearly impossible to respond “appropriately” to the
display of the caged couple. What would have been the ideal
audience reaction? To laugh? To appear indifferent and stone-
faced? To turn away in disgust? Interact with (or try to free) the
couple? There seemed to be no appropriate response, even if the
audience caught on to the inauthenticity of the Guatinauis and
got the ironic critique of similar displays from centuries past.

THEORIES

Action logic p. 250
Theater of the Oppressed p. 20

WHY IT WORKED

CASE: The Couple in the Cage

313

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Street theater web
Invisible theater p. 66
Fake press release web
Cognitive dissonance web
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

The real action is your
target’s reaction web
Do the media's work for them p. 124

If Fusco and Gomez-Pena intended to use the audience as
nothing but an instrument to argue that colonial ideas pre-
vail, the setup was perfect. However, if they intended it as
an open examination of people’s beliefs (as they present-
ed it), it is problematic that their performance offered the
audience no legitimate alternative to enacting the role of the
subjugating gazer and, in a way, no real agency: the audience
couldn’t react in a way that dismissed the colonial structure of
the encounter.

HOAX: The Couple in the Cage was an ironic reenactment of the
imperialist practice of displaying indigenous peoples in public
venues such as taverns, museums, World Expos, and freak shows.
By performing “The Couple in the Cage” in various museums,
Fusco and Gomez-Pena were exposing the racism, colonialism,
and voyeurism of the frame in which they appeared.

SHOW, DON’T TELL: The performance is an example of silent elo-
quence. It said it all — colonialism, primitivism, the myth of
the noble savage, exoticism — without explicitly stating any-
thing. Viewers were left to draw their own conclusions.

MAKE THE AUDIENCE PART OF THE THEATER: Before the audience
could fully digest and come to terms with the show, their re-
sponses (via video) were turned into a show for another audi-
ence.

RECOGNIZE AN OPENING WHEN YOU SEE IT: When the audience
seemed to enjoy the same colonial exhibition practice that the
performance meant to critique, it added some unintended
irony. Yet Fusco and Gomez-Pena were quick to seize the audi-
ence’s misinterpretation and turn it into the focal point of the
performance.

CASE: The Couple in the Cage

Two undiscovered Amerindians visit the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Photo by Robert Sanchez.

1 Coco Fusco, “The Other History of Intercultural Performance," TDR: Journal of Performance Studies
38, no. 1 (Spring 1994]: 148.

CASE: The Couple in the Cage

315

CASE STUDY:

Daycare center sit-in

WHEN

1989

WHERE

Providence, Rhode Island

PRACTITIONERS

Direct Action for Rights
and Equality [DARE]

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

Low-income tenants at a public housing project in Rhode
Island — many of them working mothers with young children —
wanted an affordable daycare center in their building. With
petitions, pickets, and letters to the city council, they built
up a steady drumbeat of pressure on the key decision maker,
the local Housing and Urban Development (HUD) director.
At a certain point they decided to escalate with direct action
see PRINCIPLE: Escalate strategically. They occupied the HUD
director’s office.

They didn’t just take it over with signs and shouting or a sim-
ple sit-in, however. They brought their kids. They brought their
kids’ toys. They brought song books, a diaper changing table,
and a fold-out crib. And they marched right into the HUD direc-
tor’s office and turned it into a daycare center.

They stayed for the whole day, and invited the press. Eventu-
ally HUD caved, and a permanent daycare center was set up in
the housing project.

WHY IT WORKED This action succeeded because it was very human and visual

and had an underlying logic that was impossible to ignore. It
was led by those most impacted by the issue: single moms with
moral authority in spades.

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Direct action p. 32
Occupation p. 78
Creative disruption p. 18
Sit-in web

PREFIGURATIVE ACTION: This action was, in essence, a sit-in, but
it had quite a bit more going for it than your average sit-in.
It wasn’t just disruptive, it was also constructive. The mothers
didn’t just occupy the office and demand a daycare center —
they made their own. Their daycare center may have only lasted
a day, but it was a powerful and prefigurative statement. And
by setting it up in the middle of the HUD office, they wielded
the basic power of direct action: disrupting business-as-usual
and increasing the pressure on HUD to meet their demands.
It was both a barn raising and a sit-in; an act of mutual aid
and a pressure tactic — and all the more powerful because of it.

316

CASE: Daycare center sit-in

MAKE YOUR GROUP COMFORTABLE AND YOUR TARGET UNCOMFORTABLE:

What could be more an organic part of these parents’ lives
than taking care of their own kids? They were completely
comfortable with it, and needed to do it anyway. By the same
token, having toddlers climbing around the office furniture
was quite foreign to the business-as-usual habits of the HUD
staff. It was messy and chaotic and made the target uncom-
fortable. Both of these dynamics helped shift power in the
direction of the tenants, and made the target more willing to
compromise.

CREATE A THEATRICAL SITUATION THAT KEEPS THE ACTION GOING:

Sometimes a protest can peter out because people don’t know
what to do next. You get rebuffed by your target or the police
and can’t figure out your next move, or you simply run out of
chants, get bored, feel silly, and go home. But the set-up-your-
own-day-care-center concept had a built-in theatrical logic
and motivation that guided the whole action and kept it going
all day. The tenants knew their roles well (they were simply
playing themselves, the good parents they already were), and
could respond naturally and “in character” to whatever action
HUD or the police took, even if they were completely ignored.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Deploy sympathetic characters p. 146

Pick battles big enough to matter,

small enough to win web

Kill them with kindness p. 140

Take leadership from the

most impacted p. 180

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

Think narratively p. 18 6

Make the invisible visible p. 152

Turn the tables p. 190

Show, don't tell p. 124

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE: The tenants wanted a daycare
center, so they made one themselves. They were the change
they wanted to see in the world. This isn’t just good ethics, it’s
good tactics, too. By walking their talk, the tenants demonstrat-
ed an integrity and authenticity that was not only empowering
for all who participated, but also earned them respect from the
public and in the press.

ACTION LOGIC: Everything the tenants needed to say was embed-
ded in the action itself. The action made all of the elements of
their cause visible: the reality of their need (young children),
what they wanted (the daycare center they had set up) , and who
was standing in the way (the HUD director) . The demand, the
target, and the consequences of inaction were all organic parts
of the action itself.

KEY THEORY

at work

OTHER THEORIES AT WORK:

Points of intervention p. 250

CASE: Daycare center sit-in

317

CASE STUDY:

Dow Chemical
apologizes for Bhopal

WHEN

December 3, 2004

WHERE

BBC,

broadcast worldwide

PRACTITIONERS

The Yes Men

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “Bhopal Disaster
-BBC -The Yes Men ”

http://trb.la/y3Gwy2

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mike Bonanno

On the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, when
an industrial gas leak killed thousands of people, a spokes-
person for the company responsible appeared live on BBC
World News and announces the impossible: Dow accepted
full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, and had created a
$12 billion dollar plan to compensate the victims and clean
up the site.

When the broadcast ended, the BBC studio technician
was beaming. “What a nice thing to announce,” she said.

“I wouldn’t work for Dow if I didn’t believe in it,” he replied.

He wasn’t lying, but he didn’t work for Dow either. In the
next hour before the hoax was revealed, Dow’s stock tempo-
rarily lost billions of dollars.

Red-faced, the BBC chalked it up to an “elaborate hoax,”
serving their need to cover up the truth: the cause of the
hoax was almost too simple to believe: it all came down to a
research error.

On November 29, 2004, an email from a BBC researcher
came in to DowEthics.com: The network was looking for a
Dow representative to discuss the company’s position on the
1984 Bhopal tragedy. (The DowEthics website had been set
up two years earlier by the Yes Men for a different action, so
the email was totally unexpected.)

Since the Yes Men couldn’t afford to go to London with
their pathetic American dollars, they asked to be booked
into a studio in Paris, where Andy was living. No problem.
Mr. Jude (patron saint of the impossible) Finisterra (earth’s
end) became Dow’s official spokesperson.

What to say? We settled on the impossible: Jude would
announce a radical new direction for the company, one in
which Dow would take full responsibility for the disaster.
We would lay out a straightforward ethical path for Dow
to follow to compensate the victims, clean up the plant
site, and otherwise help make amends for one of the worst
industrial disasters in history. It would be impossible for
Dow not to react in an embarrassing way, which would
generate tons of press and needed attention to the disaster

CASE: Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal

see PRINCIPLE: Put your target in
a decision dilemma) .

After the announcement
was made, the Yes Men helped
Dow express itself more fully
by mailing out a more formal
retraction: “Dow’s sole and

unique responsibility is to its
shareholders, and Dow CAN-
NOT do anything that goes
against its bottom line unless
forced to by law.” For a while,
this statement — as picked up
by Men’s News Daily, a reactionary drivel bucket that didn’t
realize that the news release was also fake, and didn’t object to
what it said — became the top story on Google News.

The action put Bhopal and Dow front and center in the
U.S. news on the twentieth anniversary of the disaster. And it
forced Dow to show, by its curt refusal to do anything proac-
tive, just what “corporate social responsibility” really means.

‘ When the
broadcast ended,
the BBC studio
technician was
beaming. ‘What
a nice thing
to announce,’
she said."

This action got massive coverage in the United States, where
most Dow shareholders live. It reminded folks of the unfin-
ished business in Bhopal, and let people know that Dow is
the company that needs to be held accountable.

IDENTITY CORRECTION: As fake Dow representative Jude Finis-
terra said in the interview, this was “the first time in history
that a publicly owned company went against their bottom
line simply because it was the right thing to do.” And it was,
of course, too good to be true: Dow quickly made clear that it
would not do the right thing. . . simply because it went against
their bottom line.

PUT YOUR TARGET IN A DECISION DILEMMA: By announcing on
live television that Dow was going to clean up the mess in
Bhopal, the action forced Dow to respond. Any move they
could make would make them look bad and draw further
attention to their inaction on the issue.

CASE: Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal

THEORIES

Environmental justice p. 228
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Points of intervention p. 250

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Hoax p. 54

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

319

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Anyone can act p. 98
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
Use others' prejudices against them p. 192
Bring the issue home p. 106
Anger works best if you have
the moral high ground p. 96

TAKE LEADERSHIP FROM THE MOST IMPACTED: Figuring out what
Dow should say on the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal
disaster proved to be easy: the work was already done by
Bhopal activists, who had very specific demands, clearly ar-
ticulated on their website. It was a simple matter of putting
those words in Dow’s mouth.

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: When Dow’s stock fell because
the market thought the company did a good deed for the
Bhopal victims, it revealed the callousness of the market in
an almost clinical way.

Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum, impersonating Dow Chemical, poses with an “Acceptable Risk Golden Skeleton " that cel-
ebrates the concept of acceptable (if. e., economically profitable) human risk.

320

CASE: Dow Chemical apologizes for Bhopal

® CASE STUDY:

Harry Potter Alliance

WHEN

2005-Present

WHERE

U.S.A.

PRACTITIONERS

Harry Potter Alliance
Nerdfighters
Harry and the Potters
The International Quidditch Association

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “TEDxTransmedia 2011 - Andrew
Slack - The strength of a story ”

http://trb.la/zUgjvX

Andrew Slack, “Cultural Acupuncture
and a Future for Social Change." The
Huffington Post, July 2, 2010.

http://trb.la/xxjucy

Abby Ohlheiser, “Fans of Action: How
Harry Potter Inspired a New Generation
of Activists," The Revealer

http://therevealer.org/archives/9074

Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official
Weblong of Henry Jenkins, “How
“Dumbledore’s Army” Is Transforming
Our World: An Interview with the
HP Alliance's Andrew Slack”
http://trb.la/xQGSgC

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Slack

In 2005, I was amazed by the Harry Potter fan-phenomenon.
The franchise was the highest selling work of fiction in the
history of literature. It cut across cultures. Besides the Ko-
ran, it was the most requested book in the Guantanamo Bay
prison. Fans invested enormous resources into conferences,
wrote reams of fan fiction, started Quidditch sports leagues
and tournaments and birthed an entire genre of music:
Wizard Rock, with literally hundreds of bands, all singing
about Harry Potter.

And yet, I was frustrated.

“If Harry Potter were in our world,” I realized, “he’d do
more than talk about Harry Potter. If we really were fans of
the books, we should fight injustice in our world, the way
Harry did in his.” In the books, Harry starts a student activist
group called Dumbledore’s Army that wakes the media and
government to Voldemort’s return. I wanted to create aDumb-

322

CASE: Harry Potter Alliance

ledore’s Army in our own world that could wake our media
and governments to stop global warming and end genocide
in Darfur. By tapping into a teenager’s narrative connection
to Harry Potter, such an organization could create a fun and
accessible point of entry into what could otherwise be intimi-
dating social issues.

In mid-2005, I met up with
Harry and the Potters, two
brothers, both indie rock musi-
cians who dress as Harry Potter
and sing wildly popular punk
songs at concerts with audiences
in the hundreds and sometimes
thousands. Together, we and a
few others founded the Harry Potter Alliance: a “novel” ap-
proach to activism, and began using social media to organize
the Harry Potter fanbase. Harry and the Potters reposted my
action alerts to their 60,000 followers. Soon, other Wizard
Rock bands were reposting the alerts. The biggest fan sites,
like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet, caught on and me-
dia coverage followed, with J. K. Rowling praising the group in
Time magazine and on her own site. Soon the HPA was orga-
nizing amongst almost every facet of the Harry Potter fandom,
and grew to seventy volunteer staff and over ninety chapters
around the world.

To date, the HPA has sent five cargo planes of relief
supplies to Haiti, donated 90,000 books to needy communities
and schools across the world, and has made strides in advo-
cating for human rights, LGBTQ equality, media reform and
net neutrality.

“Fan and nerd
culture make up
a huge section
of the most active
people online.”

THEORIES

The social cure p. 264
Memes p. 242
Floating signifier p. 234
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Points of intervention p. 250
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Cultural hegemony p. 222

J. K. Rowling once worked for Amnesty International. She WHY IT WORKED
believes in human rights and other core progressive val-
ues and has woven them deeply into the stories. The HPA
leverages the identification that millions of young readers
have with Harry’s values, as well as the rich story parallels
between his world and our own. Dumbledore’s Army fought
media consolidation by the Daily Prophet and Wizarding
Wireless Network; the HPA fights for net neutrality. Inspired
by Harry, who fought inequality facing werewolves, half-
giants, and Muggleborns, HPA members have set records
phone banking for Massachusetts Equality. We’ve advocated

CASE: Harry Potter Alliance 323

for indigenous rights just as Dumbledore worked for centaur
rights, and just as Hermione organized for equal wages, the
HPA “Not in Harry’s Name” campaign is challenging War-
ner Brothers to make all Harry Potter chocolate Fair Trade.

The HPA Haiti Relief plane loaded and ready to go.

KEY TACTIC DISTRIBUTED ACTION: HPA has over ninety offline chapters

used worldwide, and relies on distributed action events as a way to

act in unison. Our most successful actions have centered on
the midnight releases of new Potter films. (They’re simultane-
ous and worldwide, and people are already going, so it’s a great
organizing opportunity.) We ask supporters to organize a spe-
cific offline action in the movie theater line that goes with the
theme of the him. Fan sites are more eager to advertise for
this event, as they are already hyping the movie release. At one
release night, the New York Times showed up at our flagship event,
and we gathered thousands of petition signatures from people
all over the world asking Warner Brothers to make all Harry
Potter chocolate Fair Trade. Distributed actions around movie
releases is a tactical approach that can be neatly put to work by
other campaigns doing culture-based organizing.

324

CASE: Harry Potter Alliance

KNOW YOUR CULTURAL TERRAIN: Meet people where they’re at,
not where you want them to be. Harry Potter has tens of mil-
lions of young fans. HPA went to that fanbase as a fan, and
then from there to the political issues. HPA has also hooked
into another huge base of young people: nerds. Fan and nerd
culture make up a huge section of the most active people
online, and nerdy teenagers are using the Internet to come
together in unprecedented ways (just google HP, Hunger
Games, Whedon or Dr. Who). The Nerdhghters (“nerds using
the power of their awesome to fight world suck”) are already
starting to do for nerd-dom what HPA has done for Harry Pot-
ter fans. Remember to speak your group’s language and start
with the values they would most readily respond to.

THINK NARRATIVELY We need to organize through narratives
on three levels: personal, collective, and mythological. The
personal is your or your constituents’ individual story; the col-
lective is the story of a nation or group; the mythological is
the deeper, archetypal language of the psyche. Think: Avatar
fans fighting against the Sky People (aka the coal industry) to
protect the Pandora for our world. History’s villains — Hitler,
bin Laden and mining companies — work the mythological
level, the good guys must, too. In its best moments, the Harry
Potter Alliance is engaging in this kind of cultural dreamwork
and cultural acupuncture.

CREATE ONLINE/OFFLINE SYNERGY: People congregate online
around common interests, but long for offline and real-world
connection. Give it to them. Offer the big fan websites and
group leaders a chance to make a difference (they normally
want it) while demonstrating how it will help them engage
their audience more deeply. Have a project for them with a
solid ask that is authentically in the language of their site/fan-
dom. Use social media playfully, and with a healthy balance of
the three P’s: patience, persistence, and pizzazz.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Make new folks welcome p. 150

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Consider your audience p. 118

Kill them with kindness p. 140

Brand or be branded p. 104

Make your own myths web

Hope is a muscle web

By any media necessary web

Use powerful metaphors web

CASE: Harry Potter Alliance

325

<§>j

CASE STUDY:

ustice

for Janitors (D.C.)

WHEN

1994-1995

WHERE

Washington, D.C.

PRACTITIONERS

Workers and strategic direct
action practitioners
SEIU

FURTHER INSIGHT

SEIU, “Justice for Janitors"
http://trb.la/wp7UI6
Movie /'The Corporation"

http://trb.la/xuGUU

Dan La Botz, Troublemaker’s Handbook:
How to Fight Back Where You Work -
and Win! Detroit: Labor Notes, 1991.

CONTRIBUTED BY

Lisa Fithian

326

In 1994, after ten years of organizing, the Janitors Union in
Washington, D.C., had only organized about twenty percent
of the commercial real estate buildings downtown — not
nearly enough to put upward pressure on wages in the sector.
A change in strategy was required. Over the next two years,
Justice for Janitors organized a series of creative escalating
actions weaving together corporate campaigns, worker orga-
nizing, community support and direct actions, called Days
of Rage. Within the year, 5,000 janitors — ninety percent of
the D.C. market — were unionized and had won wage hikes
and benefits. It was a huge victory. Justice for Janitors had hit
upon one of the most successful union organizing strategies
in recent U.S. history, and the Days of Rage model has been
repeated in many places since then.

The model requires several key components: 1) a visibility
campaign designed to permeate the collective consciousness,
2) strategic research and campaign planning to create a map
and calendar of opportunities, and 3) creative and escalating
direct actions focused on a clear target. Combined, these ele-
ments help create a political crisis that forces the opponent to
either resolve the issues or lose standing in the community.

“D.C. Has Carr Trouble” was our main slogan in December
of 1994. Oliver Carr was the biggest commercial real estate
owner in D.C. and we thought our little pun creative, given
how traffic was sure to be impacted by our bridge-blockading
actions. We blocked buildings and parking garages of key real
estate giants, took over lobbies and the streets, and got arrest-
ed throughout the week.

In March we went to the homes of real estate moguls and
blocked the roads to the Capitol building by erecting mock
houses in traffic lanes. Then we simultaneously took over the
City Council Chambers, the office of Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich, and disrupted Congress from the House
Gallery right after the morning prayer, demanding that the
wealthy pay their fair share.

September culminated in a massive action shutting down
a major bridge from Virginia into D.C. In the middle of the
highway, hundreds of janitors erected a classroom, complete
with desks and chalk boards. We also parked a school bus and

CASE: Justice for Janitors (D.C.)

a school van across all four lanes, effectively closing the bridge.

When called out for blocking the bridges, SEIU President
John Sweeney replied: “I believe in building bridges whenever
[we can] be a full partner with our employers and a full citizen
of the communities we live in. But I believe in blocking bridges
whenever those employers and those communities turn a deaf
ear to the working families we represent.”

The September actions had an impact beyond our expec-
tations. Some Cabinet members couldn’t commute in. Flights
were delayed at Reagan National Airport and the Senate had
to delay votes. Needless to say, it was soon made a felony to
block a bridge in D.C. Meanwhile, though, we had captured
the hearts and minds of people in D.C. for whom janitors were
no longer invisible.

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
The social cure p. 264
Pedagogy of the Oppressed p. 246
Pillars of support p. 248
Narrative power analysis p. 244

Rick Reinhard 1995.

The Janitors for Justice creative direct action model of
organizing has been used again and again to great success,
including the series of street actions in New York during
the week of May 12, 2011, which to some degree set the
stage for Occupy Wall Street and the growing movement
against Big Banking.

Hundreds of people were willing to use their bodies to take WHY IT WORKED

and hold space. Mobility, flexibility and good research were

critical, and so was working with allies. The escalating actions

created a political crisis. The city could no longer tolerate

what was happening, so they had to intervene, creating a

political settlement in which the janitors won!

CASE: Justice for Janitors (D.C.) 327

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

Rick Reinhard 1995.

Our message in December 1994 that “D.C. has Carr Trouble,”
was too clever by half. It did not make clear to the general
public who was being impacted. In March of 1995 we shifted
to “Pay Your Fair Share,” a much clearer message, which we
carried into the September actions. It served us well.

328

CASE: Justice for Janitors (D.C.)

BLOCKADE: With those risking arrest in the front, slow cars
behind and blockade vehicles in the middle, we shut down nu-
merous bridges. Mobile teams known as “flying squads” were
key, as was having a committed group of people who showed
up every day to be trained and participate in creative actions
and social disruption. By concentrating that level of partici-
pation and commitment over a specific period in a specific
geographic zone, we created the kind of sociopolitical crisis
needed to effect real change.

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Mass street action p. 68
Creative disruption p. 18
Direct action p. 32
General strike p. 50

ESCALATE STRATEGICALLY: Building a campaign to win requires
escalation over time, leading to a moment of compression and
crisis. You have to start simply, keep training and building
people’s confidence so that they take yet more radical steps
and courageous actions.

MAINTAIN NONVIOLENT DISCIPLINE: If you are going to build a
political crisis using a committed minority, nonviolent disci-
pline is critical.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Stay on message p. 178
The real action is your target's
reaction web

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

ANGER WORKS BEST WHEN YOU HAVE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND:

If you are going to block a bridge and inconvenience thou-
sands, people must understand what’s at stake. You need to
illustrate the depth of your commitment and passion for a just
solution. You can then channel the resulting public anger to
help solve the problem: If you are pissed about this inconvenience,
we are sorry, but call the mayor and demand that he resolve these issues!

CASE: Justice for Janitors (D.C.)

329

® CASE STUDY:

Lysistrata Project

WHEN

March 3, 2003

WHERE

All over the world

PRACTITIONERS

Eve Ensler

FURTHER INSIGHT

Lysistrata Project archive

http://lysistrataprojectarchive.com/

Operation Lysistrata. Directed by Michael
Patrick Kelly. Aquapio films, 2006.

http://aquapiofilms.com/

operation-lysistrata

CONTRIBUTED BY

Kathryn Blume

It was early 2003. In the face of
unprecedented global public
opposition, the Bush Adminis-
tration was moving relentlessly
toward an illegal and unj us ti-
ded war with Iraq. Desperate
to stop the war, people all over
the world were seeking creative
ways to voice their opposition.

Inspired by the recently
organized New York group
Theaters Against War, Sharron
Bower and I, both of us ac-

A publicity photo for a Lysistrata Project production in tOTS Or2f3.nizC(l 3.11 ill tC I'll 3.-
London. Photo by Nicky Dunsire. .

tional day of theatrical action
centered around a famous ancient Greek anti-war comedy,
Lysistrata. Written by the playwright Aristophanes, Lysistrata
tells the fictitious story of the women of Greece ending the
Peloponnesian War by refusing sex until the men quit fight-
ing. Productions traditionally involve nudity on the part of
the women and excessively large phalli on the priapically
crippled men — conditions which make viewing the play a
highly memorable experience.

Over the course of a few days, Bower and I set up a web-
site that served as an instruction manual for organizing a
reading of the play. It contained downloadable logos, post-
ers, fliers, a sample press release, a top-ten list of reasons
for opposing the war, instructions for organizing a reading
and a page listing readings by geographic area with contact
information. We then sent an email to everyone we knew of-
fering this reading as a fun, powerful means of opposing the
impending war. We suggested people adapt the play to the
needs of their own community, and feel free to do readings
anywhere that suited them.

Everyone we knew forwarded the email to everyone they
knew, and we started getting phone calls and emails from
all over the world, including one from a college student in
Texas which read:

330

CASE: Lysistrata Project

FINALLY! SOMETHING WE CAN DO! I’M SKIPPING
CLASS TO GO ORGANIZE A READING IN THE
QUAD. THANK YOU FOR THINKING OF THIS!
PEACE, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE PEACE
PEACE PEACE PEACE PEACE PEACE!!!!

LOVE, KATE

Numerous playwrights offered their own translations of
the play, which were posted on the website for free, and an
educational team put together a penis-free version of the show
for kids called No Hugs, No Kisses and a fifty-page study guide
— also posted on the site.

By March 3, the day of the event, we had 1,029 readings in
fifty-nine countries on six continents (no Antarctica) and in
all fifty states. The readings received widespread news cover-
age in the U.S. and around the world. There were two star-
studded readings in New York and LA, and smaller readings in
living rooms, churches, parks, rain forest campsites, commu-
nity theaters, trailer park diners, a Kurdish refugee camp, as
well as at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens where the play is
set. There were clandestine readings in China and Jerusalem,
as well as in Northern Iraq — undertaken by the international
press corps who had to keep it secret so they wouldn’t get bred.

Lysistrata Project readings reached an estimated 200,000
people and raised over $100,000 for peace-oriented charities.

Lysistrata Project was one of the first virally organized
simultaneous events to harness the power of the Internet to
inspire and equip dispersed actions. It worked partly be-
cause we made available an easy-to-use guide to make par-
ticipation easy. It worked partly because the play is a comedy,
so it was fun to do and fun to watch. It worked partly because
sex sells. As playwright Ellen McLaughlin, who directed the
main New York reading at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,
pointed out, “Nobody can resist an ancient Greek dick joke.”
It worked partly because the play is in the public domain
and could be freely adapted for the needs of each individual
reading. It was also of a particular moment in time. There
had been a ramping-up of protests happening already — in-
cluding millions turning out all over the world on February
15, 2003 — and there was a sense of hope and optimism that
the power of the people might actually prevent the war.

THEORIES

The social cure p. 264
Action logic p. 208

WHY IT WORKED

CASE: Lysistrata Project

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

KEY TACTIC

used

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Balance art and message p. 100
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Create levels of participation web
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Anyone can act p. 98

The readings didn’t stop the war. Also, while the tactic of
simultaneous events has frequently been replicated in the
years since Lysistrata Project — most successfully by the envi-
ronmental group 350.org — nobody has ever managed to do
another day of theatrical action on such a huge scale. It did,
however, inspire smaller simultaneous actions such as read-
ings of Bury the Dead and My Name is Rachel Corrie.

DISTRIBUTED ACTION: Lysistrata Project participants took great
comfort and inspiration in knowing that they were part of a
global day of action, and that there were people all over the
world participating.

The fact that the event was a mass distributed action also mul-
tiplied the power of what each group was doing, so there was
less pressure on local organizers to have the biggest possible
event — private living room readings were just as valuable as
star-studded extravaganzas. The cumulative power of the col-
lective action also made adding readings easier, because gaps
became more obvious, and people living in those gaps were
driven to organize a reading.

Local, national, and international media outlets were also far
more inclined to cover the event because it was happening on
such a large scale.

MAKE IT FUNNY: By choosing a comedy about a sex strike as
a form of protest, Lysistrata Project organizers made partici-
pation fun for their performers and audience members and
made the event irresistible to the media.

CASE: Lysistrata Project

TO THOSE WHO CALL US HYPOCRITES FOR USING CORPORATE RESOURCES IN OUR STRUGGLE-WE ARE IN

AND THERE'S NO WAY OUT THAT DOESN'T GO THROUGH. AND, AFTER ALL, WE’VE PAID FOR THE VERY TEETH THAT CHEW US.

— Occupy Regina

Museum

WHEN

April 3, 1992 -February 28, 1993

WHERE

Baltimore

PRACTITIONERS

Fred Wilson

FURTHER INSIGHT

Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum: An
Installation. [New York, NY: Folio, 1994)

Video: “A Change of Heart: Fred
Wilson's Impact on Museums”

http://vimeo.com/11838838

CONTRIBUTED BY

Elisabeth Ginsberg

334

In 1992, a huge sign was hanging from the fagade of the
Maryland Historical Society announcing that “another” his-
tory was now being told inside. The sign referred to African-
American artist Fred Wilson’s exhibition project “Mining the
Museum,” which presented the museum’s collection in a new,
critical light.

Incorporated in 1844, the Maryland Historical Society
was founded to collect, preserve, and study objects related to
the state’s history. This mission included accounts of coloniza-
tion, slavery and abolition, but the museum tended to present
this history from a specific viewpoint, namely that of the its
white male founding board. It was this worldview that Wilson
aimed to “mine.” He did so simply by assembling the museum’s
collection in a new and surprising way, deploying various
satirical techniques, first and foremost irony.

Wilson visually argues that historical representation is as manipulative as advertising.

For instance, in the first room of the exhibit, the audience
was confronted with a silver globe — an advertising industry
award given at clubs in the first half of the century — bear-
ing the single word “Truth.” The trophy was flanked by, on
the one side, a trio of portrait busts of prominent white men
and, on the other side, three empty black pedestals. The busts
were of Napoleon, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson. None
of these worthies had ever lived in Maryland; they exempli-

CASE: Mining the Museum

fied those deemed deserving of sculptural representation
and subsequent museum acquisition. The empty busts were
labeled Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Banneker, and Frederick
Douglass, three important African-American Marylanders
who were overlooked by the ostensibly “local” institution.

“What they put on view says a lot about a museum, but
what they don’t put on view says even more,” 1 Wilson said in
an interview about his installations. He communicated this
point by contrasting what is with what should be. By drawing at-
tention to the overlooked black figures, his installment asked
whose truth was on display at the Maryland Historical Society.

The installation “Metalwork 1793-1880” was another way
that Wilson reshuffled the museum’s collection to highlight
the history of African Americans. The installation juxtaposed
ornate silver pitchers, flacons, and teacups with a pair of iron
slave shackles. Traditionally, the display of arts and craft is
kept separate from the display of traumatic artifacts such as
slave shackles. By displaying these artifacts side by side, Wil-
son created an atmosphere of unease and made apparent the
link between the two kinds of metal works: The production of
the one was made possible by the subjugation enforced by the
other. When the audience made this connection, Wilson suc-
ceeded in creating awareness of the biases that often underlie
historical exhibitions and, further, the way these biases shape
the meaning we attach to what we are viewing.

There have been other attempts to use satirical techniques
to critique museum institutions from within. Often these
have caused controversies due to misinterpretations and
the difficulties inherent in the ambition to destabilize one’s
own foundation. “Mining the Museum” worked because it
was suggestive rather than didactic, provocative rather than
moralizing.

IDENTITY CORRECTION: Wilson s intervention was a correction of
the museum’s identity in the sense that it made the underlying
racism apparent. Using glass cases and neat labeling, Wilson’s
installations mimicked the usual methods of museum display
but with a twist so that a new voice or persona was created.

THEORIES

Cultural hegemony p. 250
Alienation effect p. 210
Anti-oppression p. 220

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

CASE: Mining the Museum

335

As he said it himself: “By bringing things out of storage and
shifting things already on view, I believe I created a new public
persona for the historical society.”"

DETOURNEMENT/CULTURE JAMMING: Wilson appropriated the
museum’s collection and reshuffled it so that it communicated
a different message, almost antithetical to that of the original
constellation. Titling his exhibition “Mining the Museum,” he
sowed a three-way pun: excavating the collections to extract
the covert presence of racial minorities; planting emotionally
explosive historical material to raise consciousness; and, find-
ing reflections of himself within the museum (as in “making it
mine” — mine-ing).

Wilson's installation “Metalwork 1793-1880."

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Reframe p. 16 8
Use others' prejudices against them p. 192
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Balance art and message p. 100
Seek common ground p. 120

SHOW, DON’T TELL: Wilson communicated his critique through a
strategic juxtaposition of the museum’s artifacts. The audience
was left to draw the conclusions. For example, in an installation
entitled “Modes of Transport,” Wilson exhibited an old baby
carriage in which a Ku Klux Klan hood substituted the usual
bedding. The baby carriage was placed next to a photograph
of black nannies with white babies — their future employers.
Again, Wilson did not make any explicit statements, but simply
provided the audience with a strong visual statement about the
persistence of racial hierarchies. The suggestion that children
readily absorb their parents’ prejudices was clear.

336

CASE: Mining the Museum

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: One of the ways Wilson made the
invisible visible was by rewriting the tags of the museum’s paint-
ings and changing the lighting to re-direct viewers’ attention.
Further, in a series of “talking paintings,” Wilson gave black

child slaves voices by playing
recordings asking such ques-
tions as: “Who calms me when
I’m afraid? Who washes my
back?” or “Am I your friend?
Am I your brother? Am I your
pet?” By altering the lighting
and adding an audio track,
Wilson drew attention to peo-
ple and groups who historically
have been rendered invisible
and mute.

“What they put
on view says a lot
about a museum ,
but what they
don’t put on view
says even more.”

HOPE IS A MUSCLE: In the final part of his exhibition, Wilson
displayed the journal of Benjamin Banneker, a free, self-taught
African-American who became a prominent mathematician,
surveyor, and astronomer. Banneker was one of the figures
absent from the exhibition’s first installation. In this way, the
exhibition ended with a solution to the problem it pointed out
in the beginning. After the indictment of institutionally codi-
fied racism, Wilson offered a testament to those pioneers who
had managed to resist oppression.

1 Coco Fusco, “The Other History of Intercultural Performance," TOR: Journal of Performance Studies
38, no. 1 [Spring 1994): 148.

2 Ibid. 258

CASE: Mining the Museum

337

® CASE STUDY:

Modern-Day Slavery Museum

WHEN

2010-Present

WHERE

Exhibit has toured from
Florida to Massachusetts

PRACTITIONERS

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Student/Farmworker Alliance
Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida
Just Harvest USA

FURTHER INSIGHT

Modern-Day Slavery Museum website

http://ciw-online.org/museum/index.html

CONTRIBUTED BY

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

338

In December 2008, farm labor contractors Cesar and Geovanni
Navarrete were each sentenced to twelve years in prison for
their part in what U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy called “slavery,
plain and simple.” According to the Justice Department, the
employers “pleaded guilty to beating, threatening, restraining,
and locking workers in trucks to force them to work as agricul-
tural laborers... [They] were accused of paying the workers
minimal wages and driving the workers into debt, while
simultaneously threatening physical harm if the workers left
their employment before their debts had been repaid to the
Navarrete family.”

Although shocking in its details, the Navarrete case was
simply the latest link in a long, unbroken chain of exploita-
tion — including forced labor — in Florida’s fields. It was
the seventh farm labor operation to be prosecuted for servi-
tude in the state in the past decade, cases involving well over
1,000 workers and more than a dozen employers in total. The
federal government has since initiated two additional pros-
ecutions, bringing the total to nine as of 2011.

Even setting aside forced labor, farm work in the U.S. still
offers the worst combination of sub-poverty wages, dangerous,
backbreaking working conditions, and lack of fundamental
labor protections. In this context of structural poverty and
powerlessness, extreme forms of abuse such as forced labor
are able to take root and flourish. However these cases are
reflective of the impunity and exploitation that is rampant
throughout the agricultural sector. In other words, modern-
day slavery does not take place in a vacuum, nor is it an inevi-
table feature of our food system.

To highlight these abuses and to identify their causes and
solution, in 2010 the Coalition of Immokalee Workers — a
community-based farmworker organization — decided to
create the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum. The mo-
bile museum consists of a cargo truck carefully outfitted as
a replica of the trucks involved in the Navarrete case and a
collection of displays on the history and evolution of slavery
in Florida over the past four hundred years. The multime-
dia exhibits were developed in consultation with workers who
have escaped from forced labor operations, as well as leading

CASE: Modern-Day Slavery Museum

The Florida Modern Slavery Museum is exhibited on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., June 2010. Photo by
Fritz Myer

academic authorities on slavery and labor history in Florida.

With a team of farmworker and ally docents, the museum
toured Florida intensively, visiting churches, schools, univer-
sities and community centers for six weeks in the lead-up to
the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ three-day Farmworker
Freedom March in 2010.

People’s reactions to the museum were so overwhelmingly
positive and such a buzz was generated that the CIW later
decided to tour outside Florida to cities throughout the South-
east and Northeast, including a stop on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C. In March 2011, former President Jimmy
Carter visited the museum in Atlanta, Georgia. Approximate-
ly 10,000 people have toured the museum since its creation.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers closely links education
and action in its work. The last panel of the museum high-
lighted the ongoing Campaign for Fair Food as a systemic
solution to the problem of farmworker exploitation. And
since the Florida tour occurred during the lead-up to a major
mobilization, docents were able to extend countless personal
invitations for museum-goers (i.e., grocery shoppers) to join
the three-day march to the corporate headquarters of Publix
Super Markets, one of the CIW’s main campaign targets.
The museum was both an educational and an organizing

CASE: Modern-Day Slavery Museum

CASE STUDIES

Taco Bell boycott p. 372

WHY IT WORKED

tool, reminding attendees of their own capacity for social
change and the indispensable role they could play alongside
farmworkers in transforming the food system.

A man tours the inside of the box truck that houses the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum. Photo by Fritz Myer

KEY TACTIC ART INTERVENTION: The museum was not a “work of art” in
used the conventional sense of the term, but it did transform both
the public spaces it inhabited and the people who viewed it.
Through a host of different media and creative displays — the
highlight of which was the careful re-creation of the Naverrete
operation inside the truck itself — the museum was able to
reach viewers at a visceral level.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Reframe p. 1 68

SHOW, DON’T TELL: It is often difficult for people to accept that
modern-day slavery is a systemic problem facing U.S. agricul-
ture. The thought that the tomato topping your hamburger or
tossed in your salad may have been picked by a slave — and was
certainly picked by someone receiving very low wages for very
difficult work — can trigger a denial impulse that is difficult
to break through. But the museum, by using actual historical
artifacts, presented a tight and irrefutable indictment of the
status quo that was able to pierce this veil and open peoples’
minds to dialogue and possibly collective action.

340

CASE: Modern-Day Slavery Museum

TAKE THE SHOW ON THE ROAD: Instead of waiting for people to
come to Immokalee to visit the museum, the CIW brought
the museum to the people. With the museum as Exhibit A
of an old-fashioned speaking tour, the museum crew toured
across Florida and the Eastern U.S., often parking the
exhibit right in the center of town. There’s nothing like a
museum on wheels to draw people’s attention, not to men-
tion a museum on wheels that addresses such a pressing and
controversial topic as modern-day slavery. It was an effective
conversation starter.

TEAM UP WITH EXPERT ADVISERS: A key factor that lent the
museum credibility was the support garnered for the project
from leading academic authorities on modern-day slavery and
Florida’s labor history. Several academics had the opportunity
to offer crucial feedback on organizers’ draft research brief.
Others contributed “blurbs” similar to the advance praise you
might read on the back of a book jacket, which were included
in the museum booklet (which was itself a polished version of
the research brief) so that attendees would know that the mu-
seum’s content had been independently vetted.

CASE: Modern-Day Slavery Museum

341

WHEN

2009

WHERE

Denmark

PRACTITIONERS

The Nihilist Democratic Party

FURTHER INSIGHT

NDP website

http://www.nihilistisk-folkeparti.dk/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Simon Roel
Elisabeth Ginsberg

The Nihilist Democratic Party (NDP) was founded by a group
of philosophy graduates and students who decided to run for
public office on a nihilist platform. Fed up with the state of
Danish politics, the students
constructed an absurd politi-
cal position, ironically claim-
ing that the nihilism within
religion and science had spread
into the political sphere: “All
Danes are nihilists. We have
no values except our flat-
screen TVs. Holding other
values is considered religious
extremism. The Nihilist Dem-
ocratic Party, therefore, is
the answer to the democratic
deficit that we have witnessed
up until now,” the party’s
chairman and candidate for
mayor of Copenhagen, Mads
Vestergaard, explained in
one of the NDP’s videos.

The party ran a full campaign in the 2009 local elections,
promising such things as psychedelic ally painted subway tun-
nels (why should a subway ride be boring?), tax exemption on
drugs and alcohol (the death rate stays at 100% anyway, so we
might as well have some fun) , and the production of a “cute-
ness canon” that would list all animals deemed cute enough
for state-guaranteed protection and care — a reference to a
heated debate about the government’s production of a “na-
tional culture canon” and to the fact that the extreme right
wing in Denmark is obsessed with the needs of animals while
comfortably ignoring those of immigrants.

The NDP’s platform ironically addressed a number of di-
visive issues. For example, it promoted an aggressive interna-
tional security policy — not to defend Danish democracy, but
to protect the Danes from people with “actual values” (such as
Muslims) . They were opposed to work per se as it aids the gov-
ernment in hiding “the metaphysical fact that life is pointless

“ The NDP’s
campaign
was intended
to galvanize
opposition to the
‘empty promises,
cleavage, and
emotional porn’
that permeate
contemporary
politics.”

342

CASE: The Nihilist Democratic Party

and completely void of meaning.” And they strongly opposed
any set of cultural policies, considering culture and art an
unwarranted escape from a meaningless existence. Only
sports should be funded as they accurately represent the
meaninglessness of life, one team or player fighting another
for the sake of pointless scores.

The campaign provoked both delight and skepticism.
Since the NDP always stayed in character and never admitted
to being a hoax, some people, including noted intellectuals,
criticized the project on its own terms. For most people,
though, the party simply spiced up an otherwise predictable
election period. On the popular talk show “Good morning
Denmark,” the NDP won a poll based on the viewers’ text-
messaged votes. Yet in the elections, NDP collected “only”
around 4,500 votes (out of 2.8 million). Not enough to get
into office — but enough to get into the spotlight. Thus, activ-
ists managed to deliver a critique of a political sphere riddled
with empty pledges and spin much more effectively than had
they been writing op-ed articles or otherwise made use of
regular channels for citizens to present their views.

By officially forming a political party and running for elec-
tions — complete with banners, posters, flyers, a website, a
Facebook page, public speeches, and several candidates in
each key policy area — the NDP made it virtually impossible
to ignore their candidacy. Because NDP candidates never
broke character, voters were kept in a state of confusion. This
provoked discussions about the soundness of the NDP’s argu-
ments and positions. Indirectly, these discussions invited peo-
ple to see the proper political parties in a new, critical light.

ELECTORAL GUERRILLA THEATER: The NDP’s campaign was in-
tended to galvanize opposition to the “empty promises, cleavage,
and emotional porn” that permeate contemporary politics.
Making fun of cynical campaign promises, their main slogans
were “Everything is meaningless anyway - waste your vote on us”
and “Politics is shit, and so is the NDP, but at least we admit it.”
Exaggerating already existing tendencies — e.g., the ten-
dency to see Muslim immigration as a threat to Danish culture

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Theater of the Oppressed p. 272
The propaganda model p. 2 56
Alienation effect p. 210

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Identity correction p. 60
Hoax p. 54
Media-jacking p. 12
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

CASE: The Nihilist Democratic Party

343

or to give priority to the well-being of animals over that of
human beings — the NDP called attention to the absurdity of
some of the serious campaign pledges.

The NDP wanted Danes to see themselves for what politi-
cians make them out to be: materialists with no higher values
beyond what’s compatible with an easy, mediocre life demand-
ing few personal sacrifices. Pledges such as the state protec-
tion of cute pets financed by a total elimination of foreign aid
were intended to expose as false the (self) image of Danes as
an idealistic people.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
The real action is your
target's reaction web
Turn the tables p. 190
Use absurdity to undermine
the aura of authority web
Anyone can act p. 98
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Balance art and message p. 100
Seek common ground p. 120

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FOR THEM: Nearly all major Danish news-
papers wrote about the new party promoting no values, it
being too good a story not to feature. In addition, chairman
Mads Vestergaard, visually memorable for his combination
of mohawk and business suit, made several appearances on
prime-time talk shows, often accusing his political opponents
of being “closet nihilists.” Both the idea and the execution of
a “Nihilist Democratic Party” turned out to be fun enough
to make journalists laugh, which, in turn, resulted in a good
amount of coverage.

MAKE IT FUNNY: Basing their campaign on pledges such as
“children and young people who spend eight hours a day
playing World of Warcraft will be released from all manda-
tory education,” it was obvious that the NDP’s political to-do
list, if carried out, would cripple society. The NDP had no
intention of making good on these pledges if elected (which
they knew wouldn’t happen). Although making sincere, crit-
ical statements about Danish politics, the NDP didn’t give
into the temptation of using the media attention to propel a
serious political career.

344

CASE: The Nihilist Democratic Party

Psychedelic colors in the metro. Stop the gray brainwashing!

CASE: The Nihilist Democratic Party

345

WHEN

October, 2009

WHERE

Washington, D.C.

PRACTITIONERS

Agit-Pop

Billionaires for Wealthcare
Healthcare for America Now (HCAN)

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “Public Option Annie"

http://trb.la/zy2NxP

Video: “The Public Options Rising
Tide," Rachel M addow Show,
MSNBC, October 23, 2009

http://trb.la/xE7XaK

Video: “Protesters Sing their
Satire, " CNN, October 26, 2009

http://trb.la/x66rDw

Video: “Public Option Limited," Jon
Stewart, October 28, 2009

http://trb.la/yi4Nzy

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

By the fall of 2009, with Sarah Palin tweeting about “death
panels” and town hall meetings overrun by angry teabag-
gers up in arms (literally) about a supposed “government
takeover of healthcare,” progressives had officially lost con-
trol of the healthcare debate. Could a daring creative action
that brought the fight directly to the insurance industry help
reframe the conversation and shift momentum back toward
reform? One group of activists centered around a small “sub-
vertising” agency called Agit-Pop, certainly thought so.

Working closely with the main
healthcare reform coalition, we
snuck a handful of professional
singers and stealth videographers
into a high-profile gathering of
insurance industry lobbyists.

With fake name tags and busi-
ness suits, we blended in with
the crowd and, just as the closing
keynote began, let loose with
a “guerrilla musical” complete
with soloists, chorus and comic
asides. Dubbed “Public Option
Annie,” and set to the tune of
Annie’s “Tomorrow,” it by turn
surprised, charmed and irritated the assembled lobbyists
until security escorted everyone out. Within two hours we had
turned the footage and audio into a polished viral video, loaded
it onto YouTube and shopped it around to media outlets.

Rachel Maddow ran a glowing segment on it that same
night, calling it “the single most unexpected turn of events
yet in the fight over health reform.” It was then picked up
by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and numerous local TV stations. The
blogosphere lit up, reform supporters cheered, and Jon Stew-
art picked up the story, mocking the “terrible” singing for
blowing out his eardrums.

That same week the public option made it into the Senate
bill. Of course, it later got struck from the final legislation.
“Tomorrow,” indeed!

“Public Option
Annie shows what
a few determined
pranksters can do
when they combine
moxie, military
precision , fake
IDs and good old
musical theater.”

346

CASE: Public Option Annie

Here’s what Variety magazine had to say about the prank:

The stunt was worthy of something dreamed up by a
Hollywood press agent of yesteryear: A group of health
reform activists quietly infiltrated a D.C. meeting of
health insurance executives and, one by one, added
their voices to a growing chorus of a satirical version
of “Tomorrow” from “Annie.” The antics, from the
group Billionaires for Wealthcare, was a bit of show-
manship in a health care debate that has until only
recently been scarce in showbiz moments.

And as one YouTube user commented:

The right sends armed, angry and misinformed people
to disrupt town halls. The left invades with clever send
ups. Charm, wit and intelligence will eventually carry
the day.

Public Option Annie shows what a few determined prank-
sters can do when they combine moxie, military precision,
fake IDs and good old musical theater. It’s also a great ex-
ample of the synergies possible when an action has both a
“real world” and online dimension. While the action itself
was a surgical strike inside the belly of the insurance indus-
try beast, the “stickiness” of the presentation ensured that
millions of Americans witnessed it on the tubes.

GUERRILLA MUSICAL: Who doesn’t love a good song and dance
number? And how much more exciting when the musical
breaks out unexpectedly, right next to you, in the middle of
an otherwise boring day? And, if on top of that, this “guer-
rilla musical” is actually singing truth to power behind enemy
lines, all the while smiling and staying in key? Those insur-
ance industry lobbyists never had a chance.

MEDIA-JACKING: In the theater proper there’s a literal stage, but
in the (political) world at large, a stage is wherever the action
is, whether that’s Tiananmen Square or inside an insurance

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Infiltration p. 64
Creative disruption p. 18
Direct action p. 32

CASE: Public Option Annie

347

industry conference. By inserting your action into a contested
space, you turn it into a stage. By challenging the powers that
rule that space, you create the kind of real-world, conflict-
laced drama that can powerfully tell your story — and, if pack-
aged right, go viral.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Kill them with kindness p. 140
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 188
Leverage the celebrity of your target web
Plan your action with
military precision web
The real action is your
target's reaction web

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FORTHEM: You cannot count on the main-
stream media to tell your story for you — and in our age of cell
phone cams, YouTube and instant blogging, you don’t have to.
The “Annie” team snuck more videographers (six) into the
conference than they did singers (five) . The whole action was
orchestrated for expressive impact, scripted, rehearsed and
performed for the camera. Our own cameras.

BALANCE ART AND MESSAGE: There’s a tendency on the Left to
think that if intentions are good, art doesn’t have to be. This
is rarely true. If your art is good, people will pay more atten-
tion to what you’re trying to say. Even people who disagree
with your views will still respect your effort because you
showed them the respect of making as strong and beautiful
an artwork as possible. The lead “Annie” soloist was a profes-
sionally trained opera singer with six years at the Met. The
“Annie” team went through four scripts till they hit on the
right one, and then rehearsed it as intensely as time would
allow. That amount of preparation isn’t always possible but,
in general, if you take your art seriously, your audience is
more likely to take your ideas seriously.

348

CASE: Public Option Annie

POLITICS

IS THAT

DIMENSION

OF SOCIAL LIFE
IN WHICH THINGS
BECOME

TRUE

IF ENOUGH PEOPLE
BELIEVE THEM

CASE STUDY:

WHEN

1995-2000

WHERE

London and
around the world

PRACTITIONERS

Reclaim the Streets
Situationist International

FURTHER INSIGHT

Hamm, Marion. “Reclaim the Streets:
Global Protest, Local Space"
Republicart. May, 2002.

Mckay, George (edj. DIY Culture:
Party and Protest in Nineties Britain.
London & New York: Verso, 1998.

Klein, Naomi. No Logo:Taking Aim
at the Brand Bullies.
New York: Picador, 2000.

Notes From Nowhere [edj, We Are
Everywhere: The Irresistible
Rise of Global Anticapitalism.
London & New York: Verso, 2003.

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Jordan

350

Reclaim the Streets (RTS) began as creative activist group
in London, but its tactics, blending party and protest, soon
spread around the world. Merging the direct action of Brit-
ain’s anti-road building movement and the carnivalesque na-
ture of the counter-cultural rave scene, RTS became a catalyst
for the global anti-capitalist movements of the late ’90s.

RTS saw the streets as the urban equivalent of the commons
see THEORY: The commons, in need of reclaiming from the
enclosures of the car and commerce and transformed into truly
public places to be enjoyed by all. RTS became most known for
its street parties, which served not only as a protest vehicle against
car culture but also as a prehgurative vision of what city streets
could be in a system that prioritized people over profit and ecol-
ogy over the economy see TACTIC: Prefigurative intervention.

The first street party took place in North London in May
1995. Using rave culture tactics, the location was kept secret
until the last moment, and participants were led from a public
meeting point through the subway to emerge at the party site
before the police had time to gather forces.

The event began with two cars crashing into each other.
The drivers jumped out in theatrical road rage and began to
destroy each other’s vehicles with hammers. Meanwhile, 500
people emerged from the subway station into the traffic-free
street that the crashed cars had blocked, and started the par-
ty, dancing, sharing free food and meeting new friends.

From 1995-98, street parties evolved in complexity and
scale. Creative techniques ranged from tons of sand dumped
in the road to create a sand box, to tripods made from scaf-
folding erected in the middle of the street with someone sit-
ting on top. These “intelligent” barricades blocked the road
from cars and yet opened it for pedestrians.

In the summer of 1996, 8,000 participants took over a
motorway while huge carnival figures with hooped skirts
moved amongst them. Underneath the skirts, hidden from
view, activists drilled into the tarmac with jack hammers and
planting saplings into the motorway. This story took on the
power of a myth as it circulated on the early threads of the
world wide web. It even inspired striking longshoremen from
Liverpool to make common cause with RTS, proof that imag-

CASE: Reclaim the Streets

ination can break down barri-
ers of class and political/ cul-
tural difference.

The RTS meme soon spread
across the UK and the Western
world. A global street party in
seventy cities occurred in May
1998, coinciding with the G8
summit. A year later, a “Car-
nival Against Capital” on June
18th, coordinated by RTS and the People’s Global Action net-
work, saw simultaneous actions in financial districts across the
world, from Nigeria to Uruguay, Seoul to Melbourne, Belarus
to Dhaka. Six months after that, a carnivalesque mass street
action shut down the WTO in Seattle, an event that proved to
be the coming-out party for the anti-globalization movement.

“Much political
action is
predictable and
boring; street
parties are quite
the opposite ”

RTS was successful because it did not look or feel like a typi-
cal protest. Much political action is predictable and boring;
street parties are quite the opposite. All sorts of people got
involved because they knew it would be both a transgressive
political adventure and a brilliant party. RTS’s political au-
dacity — “let’s hold a mass carnival in the financial district
or a rave on a motorway” — ignited hope, and hope is the
catalyst for the formation of new movements. Another key
reason for its popularity was that it involved a simple, adapt-
able formula: disseminate an invitation over the still-young
Internet, get a sound system and occupy a street. Its cre-
ativity came from its diversity — from artists to anarchists,
unionists to ecologists, ravers to cyclists — all came together
to experiment with new forms of mass action.

CARNIVAL-PROTEST: With its music, wild costumes, liberated
bodies, color and revelry, RTS created rebel carnivals. Unlike
regular carnivals and parades, RTS never asked for permis-
sion, leaving the event open to the possible and impossible,
turning the world on its head in true carnival spirit.

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Memes p. 242

Society of the Spectacle p. 266
Temporary Autonomous
Zone [TAZ] p. 270

CASE

Streets into gardens p. 368

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Direct action p. 32
Mass street action p. 68
Flash mob p. 46

CASE: Reclaim the Streets

351

Reclaim the Streets NYC logo.

352

CASE: Reclaim the Streets

HOPE ISA MUSCLE: While street parties were often accompanied
by written propaganda explaining the ideas and theories be-
hind them, the thing that had the greatest impact was not the
theory that went into the events but the hope that emerged.
The hope that unfurled from these events not only catalysed
the anti-globalization movement, but many of those involved
went on to work in various global justice movement groups
such as Genetic Engineering Network, the Wombles, Dissent!,
the Rising Tide Network, the Clandestine Insurgent Clown
Army, the Climate Camp and the Occupy movement.

NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH A DRUM CIRCLE: Whilst the surprise
location of the street parties was not something that could
be public knowledge before the event, as the police would
have shut them down, the events themselves were very par-
ticipatory. RTS was an open invitation for people to come
to the street party with whatever creative ideas they wanted.
Unlike marches with set themes and slogans, street parties
were frames for collective spontaneity. Even if you did not
bring your own costume, giant prop or free feast, then sim-
ply the act of dancing with thousands of others on a road
meant that you were an active participant rather than spec-
tator or consumer.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Put your target in a

decision dilemma p. 166

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176

Create levels of participation web

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

Show, don't tell p. 174

Take risks, but take care p. 182

Change attitudes by

transforming space web

CASE: Reclaim the Street s

353

CASE STUDY:

le salt march

WHEN

1930

WHERE

Gujarat, India

EPIGRAPH

“Gandhi’s greatness lay
in doing what everyone
could do but doesn’t.”

Louis Fischer, Gandhi's biographer 1

PRACTITIONERS

Gandhi

Indian independence movement

FURTHER INSIGHT

Nonviolent Conflict, “The Indian
Independence Struggle (1930-1931]"

http://trb.la/yPdPOu

Video: “Salt March ”

http://trb.la/w6WuLH

CONTRIBUTED BY

Nadine Bloch

Any collection of creative actions worth its salt would include
a reference to Gandhi’s famous march — and the conversa-
tion would be flavored with strategic and practical lessons still
resonant today.

In 1930, the Indian National Congress adopted satyagraha
(essentially, nonviolent protest) as their main tactic in their
campaign for independence. Mahatma Gandhi was appoint-
ed to develop a plan of action; he proposed marching to the
sea to make salt in defiance of the Salt Act of 1882- Violation
of the Salt Act, which made it illegal for anyone to collect or
produce salt except for authorized British nationals, did not
immediately catch the imagination of the delegates, and was
reportedly met with some laughter in the Congress. The Raj
(as the British empire in India was known) did not take this
idea as much of a threat either. Viceroy Lord Irwin actually
wrote back to London to report, “At present the prospect of a
salt campaign does not keep me awake at night.” 2

This would soon change, however, as the salt march, which
began with about eighty men, quickly gathered supporters
on its way to the Indian Ocean. Gandhi framed the 240-mile
march from his ashram to the sea within a traditional cultural
practice known as the padyatra (a long spiritual march). Not
only did this help make the whole program more understand-
able to the Indian public, it opened up the possibility to do
outreach, gather more supporters, educate and provide train-
ing, and work the national and international press. Advance
teams worked the route and followers slept out in the open in
each town to be more accessible.

When he and more than 12,000 supporters finally reached
the sea, the day chosen to make salt was the ten-year anniversary
of the first round of national resistance actions. The British were
slow to react at first, allowing more Indians to join in the pro-
test. As salt making spread, and the British responded brutally,
the empire’s facade of civility slipped and then fell away entirely.

WHY IT WORKED

The salt march had profound cultural resonance for Indians
across lines of caste and class because Gandhi did his strate-
gic planning homework by travelling (always third class) all

CASE: The salt march

over India for a year. In the process of talking the pulse of
the country, he recognized that in order to attract unified
masses across caste and religious lines, the campaign to win
something as ethereal as independence needed to be linked
to a tangible manifestation of that demand. The more it af-
fected or appealed to the poor and lower classes, and the
greater the benehtfor the majority of Indians, the greater the
chance of expanding the movement, and therefore winning.

When people could hold the physical distillation of their
labor — salt — in their hands, the esoteric, long-term goal
of independence became concrete and immediate. This was
action design at its most brilliant.

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Pillars of support p. 248
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Points of intervention p. 250
Floating signifier p. 234
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260

TREK: The act of marching and the culminating act of making
salt by the sea’s edge, while seemingly simple, actually offered
the masses a chance to act courageously through both coor-

dinated and dispersed action.
As the march attracted more
adherents, and as the move-
ment grew, so the pillars of the
empire’s power see THEORY:
Pillars of support were seriously
undermined. The salt march
set the stage for India’s eventu-
al independence as Indians and
Brits alike realized that rule
was not practicable without the
consent of the governed. That
consent had dissolved into the sea.

“As saltmaking
spread, and the
British responded
brutally, the
empire’s facade
of civility slipped
and then fell
away entirely

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Strategic nonviolence p. 88
Direct action p. 32
Distributed action p. 36

PREFIGURATIVE INTERVENTION: Making salt married an im-
provement in quality of life to political aspirations for indepen-
dence, and provided a pattern for “constructive work” that was
the backbone of a myriad of Indian resistance efforts, which
included advocacy of homespun cloth, schools and gardens.

1 Life Positive, “Mahatma Gandhi - A Living Sermon,” by Tom Weber.
http://www.lifepositive.com/spirit/masters/mohatma-gandhi/dandi-march.asp

2 Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall, A Force More Powerful (New York, NY: Palgrave, 200], 84

3 Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall, A Force More Powerful (New York, NY: Palgrave, 200], 71

CASE: The salt march

355

Gandhi during the Salt March, March 1930.

356

CASE: The salt march

In fact, the entire march was set up to prefigure an alternative
way of life and social structure that modeled an ideal (and
economically self-reliant) Indian society and prepared Indians
to assume political leadership.

PUT YOUR TARGET IN A DECISION DILEMMA: The public defiance
of the salt march put the empire in a classic double bind: Each
salt maker arrested would become a martyr for the movement
and expose the brutal hand of the regime. Of course, by doing
nothing, they also gave space for the movement to grow, and
even worse, for onlookers to think that the English had either
lost the will or the ability to control the situation.

CHOOSE YOUR TARGET WISELY: Challenging the British Salt Tax
perfectly embodied the injustice of the British rule. The bur-
den of this regressive tax fell disproportionately on those
who could least afford it. It also provided a way for anyone
with access to seawater — upper class or untouchable, Hindu
or Muslim — to participate. Outreach and education events
were used throughout the march to broaden its reach.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Use the power of ritual p. 198
If protest is made illegal, make
daily life a protest p. 138
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Enable, don't command p. 132
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Create levels of participation web
Reframe p. 168

When the people are with you, act web
Do your research web

CASE: The salt march

357

jAk CASE STUDY:

w Santa Claus Army

WHEN In the lead-up to Christmas 1974, an army of about seventy
ig 74 Santa Clauses, male and female, paraded through the city of
Copenhagen, singing carols, handing out sweets and hot choc-
olate, and asking everyone what they wanted for Christmas.

Denmark

PRACTITIONERS

Solvognen

FURTHER INSIGHT

Video: “Julemandshseren” [Danish
documentary on the Santa Claus
Army, English subtitles)

http://trb.la/zpgVWF

CONTRIBUTED BY

Elisabeth Ginsberg

Members of the Santa Claus Army giving away books they just took off the shelves. Photos such as the one above,
showing the Danish police harassing the Santas for being “too generous," circulated widely in the 1970s.

After spending a few days cementing the good image of
good old Santa Claus, their generosity became increasingly
radical. Among other things, the Santas climbed a barbed
wire fence surrounding the recently shuttered General Motors
assembly plant with the purpose of giving jobs back to “their
rightful owners.”

The week-long performance reached its crescendo inside
one of Copenhagen’s biggest department stores when the San-
tas started handing out presents to customers directly off the
shelves. Before too long, security guards and shop assistants
interrupted the magic, desperately tearing the presents out of
people’s hands. The police soon showed up and escorted the
Santa Clauses out onto the street, where they were roughed up
and thrown into paddy wagons in spite of the fact that it wasn’t
clear that a criminal act had been committed, except perhaps on
the part of customers who took home the presents without paying.

The performance exposed the radical implications of the

358

CASE: Santa Claus Army

myth of Santa Claus’ boundless generosity, demonstrating
that true generosity is impossible within the narrow terms of
capitalist society. With widely distributed photos of Santa Claus
getting beaten for being too generous, the action was a hit.

The people behind Santa’s beards were the Danish theater
collective Solvognen (“The Sun Chariot,” an allusion to Norse
mythology). During the 1970s, the collective performed many
large-scale actions intended to make bourgeois Danish society
“act itself out as theater.”

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Cultural hegemony p. 222
Action logic p. 208
The commons p. 220

Solvognen’s spectacles were powerful, among other reasons WHY IT WORKED

because they appropriated images from popular culture

and ascribed these images a new meaning: Father Christmas

handing out gifts to children became a critique of hypocrisy

in consumerist society. The well-known imagery drew the

audience quickly into the performances and, further, equipped

them with a key to interpret what was going on.

GUERILLA THEATER: Most of Solvognen’s actions were surprise
performances in unlikely public spaces to an unsuspecting au-
dience. Through performances that were playful, bold and easy
to understand, Solvognen managed to spread its political ideas
beyond the circle of true believers: most Danes knew about
Solvognen and its activities. Legend has it that people even
started seeing them when they weren’t there: at a public view-
ing of an American F-16 jet fighter, three real security guards
were arrested on suspicion of being members of Solvognen!

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Identity correction p. 60
Creative disruption p. 18
Hoax p. 54
Direct action p. 32

THE REAL ACTION IS YOUR TARGET’S REACTION: The performers
made it difficult for the authorities not to become part of the
theater. Doing their job, the police were obligated to intervene.
Had the police for some reason ignored the performers, the
theater would have been incomplete. Hence, the success of the
performance was dependent on the actions of the target.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE POLICE (UNLESS IT IS FUNNY NOT TO):

Solvognen’s interaction with the police was highly strategic. Always
staying in character even in the midst of violent confrontation
with the police, the performers created priceless photo ops.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Kill them with kindness p. 140

Do the media's work for them p. 124

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

Escalate strategically p. 134

Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146

Use the power of ritual p. 198

Use your radical fringe to slide

the Overton window p. 200

CASE: Santa Claus Army

359

WHEN

2006 -present

WHERE

Various public locations
across the UK and Europe

EPIGRAPH

“The gift must travel.”

-Anonymous

PRACTITIONERS

Rajni Shah

FURTHER INSIGHT

Small gifts, Rajni Shah

http://trb. la/wOUh8ws

Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and
Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies.
W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.

“Everything for Everyone, Nothing for
Ourselves" by the Lab of Insurrectionary
Imagination

http://labofli.net/experiments/psi

“Burning with Desire: At Black Rock City,
it is better to be awesome than rich."
Walrus Blog, September 13, 2010.

http://trb.la/zkdrr

CONTRIBUTED BY

Rajni Shah

360

Small gifts is a series of interventions that introduces new spac-
es for conversation and generosity within shopping centers.
The series was conceived as a way of presenting concepts of
radical generosity to people who might otherwise not think of
themselves as political.

Some of the questions that this series addressed include:

• What would our world look like if we exchanged gifts rather
than money?

• What is the value in speaking to strangers?

• What if we focused on giving as much as we can rather
than as little?

n n x |. _

One particular interven-
tion, called “give what you can,
take what you need,” invites
passersby to share resources,
cultivating the recognition
that everyone might have
something useful to bring to
the table.

The intervention takes place
in a busy shopping center,
where three artists (Rajni Shah
and two other collaborators
including, at various times,

Lucille Acevedo-Jones, Lucy
Cash, Sheila Ghelani and liana
Mitchell) set up a large dining
table and chairs and prepare
one hundred tiny envelopes, each containing a one-pound
coin (US$1.50), a question to serve as a conversation starter,
and an instruction to use the pound as inspiration to make,
buy or find something to bring back to the table.

Passersby are approached by the artists and invited to take
part in the intervention by accepting the gift contained with-
in the small envelope. On acceptance of the envelope, they
become part of the conversation, and decide for themselves
whether or how they will spend the pound, and whether they

because we
interventions don’t
ask participants
to assume any
particular
political position,
they involve a
much broader
range of people
than other, more
targeted actions.”

CASE: Small gifts

will return to the table. If they do return with something to
offer, they are invited to use their conversation-starter ques-
tion to meet new people, and can partake of whatever is on
the table at that time.

This intervention is typical of the small gifts series in that
it asks the participant to determine what he/she takes from
the experience, guided only by a series of simple conversa-
tion starters and whatever is being shared on the table. Stated
outcomes included a renewal of faith in other people and the
formation of community among strangers. In addition to the
people who return to the table, everyone who takes an en-
velope then has to decide what to do with their pound coin,
provoking discussion about generosity, value and ownership.

Because the interventions don’t ask participants to assume
any particular political position, they involve a much broader
range of people than other, more targeted actions. The par-
ticipatory, conversation-sparking nature of the work allowed
for a deeper connection with the principles of generosity
and gift economy, and actively encouraged strangers to
connect with one another.

This type of intervention only worked within a busy environ-
ment and required a lot of initiative and attention to detail.
In the example described, there were always three people
“hosting” and constantly engaging in unique conversations
with passersby.

HAPPENING: This is an example of a gentle happening that
can take on a life of its own. When the artists did this project
in Manchester, they left the party in progress, and allowed
conversations to continue without them. It felt important that
the public had taken ownership of the concept also see PRIN-
CIPLE: Simple rules can lead to grand results.

KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS: The beauty of this kind of gentle,
open intervention, which uses gift giving to engage with peo-
ple, is that it attracts people who are not usually drawn to

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Temporary Autonomous Zone p. 270
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
The commons p. 220
Capitalism p. 216

WHY IT WORKED

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

KEY TACTIC

used

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

CASE: Small gifts

361

‘Give what you can, take what you need' gift envelope with pound coin. Photo provided by artist.

“Give what you can, take what you need” in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, with artists Sheila Ghelani, liana Mitchell
and Rajni Shah. Photo provided by artist.

362

CASE: Small gifts

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

either “arty” or “political” interventions. Small gifts allowed
the artists to create spaces for genuine conversation and then
let those conversations lead where they may. It also allowed for
new relationships to develop across social divides — a deeply
political but almost entirely non-confrontational action.

Simple rules con have grand results p. 1 76

Show, don't tell p. 174

Make new folks welcome p. 150

BALANCE ART AND MESSAGE: Small gifts aimed to bring a sense
of trust and beauty into the otherwise manipulative and fully
commodified world of shopping centers. The artist-origina-
tors spent a lot of time preparing their materials, so that the
gifts they were handing out would feel like real gifts and not
easily be dismissed. By beautifully handcrafting their initial
gifts, the artists invited the same care and attention to detail
from passersby.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE: This action came from the
artist’s own sadness that most radical works of art only create
a greater divide between those who already believe in a cause
and those who don’t — and a realization that she herself was
afraid of speaking to strangers.

KNOW YOUR CULTURAL TERRAIN: Choosing to site the interven-
tions in shopping centers only added to the message: operating
within a hub of commercialism, the ideas of gift exchange
and simple generosity seemed all the more radical and trans-
gressive.

CASE: Small gifts

363

WHEN

June 2009-present

WHERE

Global

PRACTITIONERS

Palestinian BDS [Boycott,
Divestment & Sanctions] campaign
Palestinian civil society

FURTHER INSIGHT

Stolen Beauty campaign

www.stolenbeauty.com

Boycott Soda Stream

www.codepink.org/boycottsodastream

Boycott, Divestment &
Sanctions campaign

www.bdsmovement.net

VIDEO: BDS Brides Take LA

http://trb.la/Axwl82

VIDEO: CODEPINK Goes to Cosmoprof

http://trb.la/yXz9sz

CONTRIBUTED BY

Kristen Ess Schurr

364

Beauty boycott campaign

A group of American and Israeli women enter the Ahava
cosmetics shop in the Tel Aviv Hilton. Sporting bikinis, they
smear mud on their bodies, scrawling the words “Stolen
Beauty” and “No Love in Ahava.” Questions are asked, a dia-
logue begins. A few weeks later at a “Tel Aviv Beach Party”
in New York, another group of women in bikinis conveys the
same messages.

These actions were just the
beginning of a multi-pronged
international campaign against
Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories,
an Israeli company located in
an illegal settlement in the Oc-
cupied West Bank. The message
is in the mud: there is nothing
beautiful about occupation.

Stolen Beauty seeks to edu-
cate consumers, store managers,

CEOs, and the general public about Ahava’s illegal practices.
Our tactics range from guerrilla theater to online culture jam-
ming. We target Ahava — its location in an illegal settlement,
its fraudulent labeling, and its illegal pillaging of mud from
the shores of occupied lands — as a poster child of the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. By
drawing attention to Ahava’s settlement products, we educate
the American and global public on what is really happening
in the occupied West Bank, contributing to the much larger
international campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions
calling on the Israeli government to respect international law
and Palestinian rights.

Soon after the launch of the campaign, we discover that
Sex and the City star Kristin Davis is both Ahava’s spokes-
model and an Oxfam Goodwill Ambassador. Our boycott
supporters contact Oxfam, which has an explicit policy
against Israeli settlement products. Oxfam suspends Davis
from publicity work for the duration of her Ahava contract.
The story lands in the gossip column of the New York Post;
terrible publicity for Ahava, but good for fans of justice and
peace. Davis does not renew her contract with the company.

“The Stolen Beauty
campaign has
proven effective
because it is
multipronged ,
strategic, global
and responsive ”

CASE: The Stolen Beauty boycott campaign

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Action logic p. 208

Muddy Reality: Ahava is Stolen Beauty. Photo by CODEPINK.

Next, Ahava announces a Twitter contest for free products.
We issue a call to Tweet in messages like: “Does AHAVA offer
a moisturizer to sooth my hands after so much ethnic cleans-
ing?” We culture jam their marketing contest, turning it into
a #socialmediafail.

Creative interventions continue to target points of inter-
vention such as stores that carry Ahava’s products see THEO-
RY: Points of intervention. For instance, ten women don pink
bathrobes with matching towels wrapped around their heads
and walk into these stores, singing jingles about the ills of
occupation. Protesters and other patrons ask the store to stop
stocking Ahava cosmetics.

Ahava’s reputation as an international brand has been
tarnished by the first two years of the boycott campaign and
the resulting bad press. The company lost its celebrity spokes-
model, it lost the lease on its Covent Garden store, and a num-
ber of small, independent stores stopped stocking its products.
Ahava removed the store locator from its U.S. web site, and
sent a letter to retailers filled with false claims about our cam-
paign and where they source their materials. In 2010, Ahava
was condemned as being complicit in Israeli government
crimes at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, London Session,
and its production and labeling practices have come under
extensive scrutiny in Europe.

CASE: The Stolen Beauty boycott campaign

365

WHY IT WORKED The Stolen Beauty campaign has proven effective because it

is multipronged, strategic, global and responsive. It provides
space for engagement at all levels of activism, in locations
around the world. The campaign employs a range of tac-
tics including street actions, guerrilla theater, culture jam-
ming, social media work, traditional media outreach, and
consumer education. The campaign acts as an omnipresent
mosquito buzzing around the head of the company, a target
chosen because its practices contravene international law.
A core group developed the campaign — the web site, the
tools and resources — and coalition activists around the
world were able to use them in their locales.

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Boycott web
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Media-jacking p. 12
Street theater web
Creative disruption p. 18
Distributed action p. 36

CREATIVE DISRUPTION: Stolen Beauty activists get attention and
tell a story with outrageous costumes, direct action and clever
yet clear messaging. Stores that sell illegal settlement prod-
ucts come to a standstill when we enter singing in bathrobes,
smeared with mud or performing marriage ceremonies pledg-
ing ourselves to the pursuit of Palestinian human rights.

DISTRIBUTED ACTION: Stolen Beauty has succeeded in getting a
diverse set of tools into the hands of high numbers of activ-
ists to wage a multi-pronged, global campaign. The script and
song sheets for actions like performing a marriage ceremony
pledging to boycott settlement products in front of the Bed,
Bath & Beyond Bridal Registry are easily downloadable from
the Stolen Beauty website. We provide Twitter suggestions via
email for the lone wolf and tips for indoor Valentine’s Day
parties when the weather is bad to clog the comment threads
of beauty sites that sell Ahava.

KEY PRINCIPLE USE THE LAW ’ D0N ' T BE AFRAID 0F IT: Occupation is illegal. It di-
rectly contravenes international law, the Geneva Conventions
and existing United Nations resolutions. Stolen Beauty puts
the onus where it belongs: Israeli companies are breaking the
law and profiting from the occupation, and should be held
to account. While bringing attention to these facts, activists
dressed in bathrobes, bikinis or bridal wear risk arrest in
order to creatively disrupt business as usual.

366

CASE: The Stolen Beauty boycott campaign

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: People shopping for high-end cos-
metics, as well as passersby, store clerks and managers, are
made aware of the Israeli occupation when they are exposed
to Stolen Beauty’s actions. The campaign undermines the
legitimacy of the “Made in Israel” stamp, and makes visible
illegal profiteering from occupation.

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Reframe p. 1 68

Create levels of participation web
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Show, don't tell p. 174
Always have an ask or next step web
By any media necessary web

PICK BATTLES BIG ENOUGH TO MATTER, SMALL ENOUGH TO WIN:

Will activists stop the Israeli occupation of Palestine by boy-
cotting a cosmetic company? No. But the campaign is affect-
ing Ahava’s reputation and bottom line by exposing its ugly
secrets, and contributing to the much larger Boycott, Divest-
ment and Sanctions campaign. Activists have convinced many
local stores to stop carrying Ahava, and the British Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions campaign was able, after months of
continual protest, to get the Ahava flagship store to close its
Covent Garden location.

CASE: The Stolen Beauty boycott campaign

367

CASE STUDY:

treets

into gardens

368

WHEN

1999

WHERE

New York City

PRACTITIONERS

Reclaim the Streets NYC
More Gardens! Coalition
Lower East Side Collective

CONTRIBUTED BY

Mark Read

In the spring of 1999, real estate values in New York’s East
Village and Lower East Side neighborhoods were skyrocketing,
in no small part due to the beautiful network of community
gardens in the area. In a massive giveaway to corporate
developers, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he
would auction off 198 community gardens. Gardeners and
their supporters began organizing to stop it from happening.

On a gray and quiet Saturday afternoon weeks before the
auction, two “tripod teams” were anxiously milling about
on Avenue A in the East Village, anticipating the arrival of
a boisterous crowd assembling several blocks away. All the
constituent parts of the tripod, along with several plant box-
es and other sundry items, had been stashed in strategic and
discrete locations along the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, the diverse and growing crowd was in the
garden finishing its face-painting, elf-costuming and other
preparations. Lace-winged children and leaf-adorned stilt-
walkers made their way into the street. The brass notes of
trombones, tubas and saxophones rang out as the throng
of garden protectors proceeded westward along 7th Street
and turned the corner onto Avenue A. When the crowd
arrived, the teams quickly erected the tripods. The designated
“perchers” quickly ascended the rope that hung from the
center and installed themselves in the cradle formed at the
top. Traffic was thus effectively and immediately shut down.
Marchers dragged the plant boxes into the street, gave pack-
ages of seeds to the children and began teaching them how
to make roses grow. With a bit of rope and some ingenuity,
others were able to turn several misplaced police barricades
into a seesaw. Beautifully wrapped packages were opened
to the delight of all as the crowd, which had been asked to
bring gifts to share, bestowed one another with presents. A
sound crew wheeled a massive set of speakers into the street
and began broadcasting a pirate radio signal that was trans-
mitting from a nearby apartment. Dancing began in earnest,
and the crowd soon swelled to 300, then 400, then 500.

For the next several hours, a city block became the sort
of public space that Giuliani was planning to eliminate by
selling the gardens. One banner above all others summed

CASE: Streets into gardens

up the driving logic of the action: “If they’re going to pave
over the places where we play, then we will play in the places
they’ve paved over.” The frame stuck, and was repeated in
the mainstream media that night and the next day. By the
time the auction was scheduled to take place, public senti-
ment had shifted strongly against the mayor on this issue.
He was ultimately forced to stop the auction and sell the
gardens to private land trusts instead of greedy developers,
and all of the gardens were preserved in perpetuity.

THEORIES

Temporary Autonomous Zone p. 270
Action Logic p. 208
Ethical Spectacle p. 230

A Reclaim the Streets' festival of resistance in support of Streets into Gardens action.

The “streets into gardens” action viscerally demonstrated
what would be lost were Giuliani to succeed in paving over
the community gardens of New York City. By taking the
city’s position on gardens (pave them over) and inverting
that logic in the streets (play on the pavement), organizers
were able to reveal the outrageous injustice of the auction
itself while simultaneously embodying the world they were
fighting to preserve. The action was also, crucially, one part
of a much larger, broad-based campaign. It was thus clearly
understood within the context of that campaign to save the
gardens. Lastly, the action was able to draw in passersby and
turn them into participants because it was bold, innovative,
daring, and most of all, fun!

WHY IT WORKED

CASE: Streets into gardens

369

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Mass street action p. 68
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Direct action p. 32

CARNIVAL-PROTEST: This action was a “festival of resistance” or
a carnival-protest, and it certainly benefited from the use of
this tactic in the expected ways: the protest didn’t feature a
long list of speakers, it didn’t insist on using angry chants to
drive its message, it was participatory and it was fun! People
from around the neighborhood actuallyjoined in the action
and stayed in the street with the demonstrators. The tactic
of carnival protest was especially well-suited to the frame
of the action, which was all about maintaining and protect-
ing public spaces that are themselves cites of celebration and
community participation.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Escalate strategically p. 134
No one wants to watch a
drum circle p. 1 56
Reframe p. 168
Show, don't tell p. 174
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
Create levels of participation web

TURN THE TABLES: By arbitrarily repurposing a street and sym-
bolically transforming it into a community garden, neigh-
borhood residents exposed an analogously arbitrary act of
repurposing by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Through that
analogy, the action was made coherent, and the action’s very
audacity, by echoing the audacity of Giuliani’s move to sell
off so many gardens at once, lent a moral credibility to a
stunt that might otherwise have come off as merely uncivil.

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: The mechanisms of power are
often obscured behind layers of bureaucracy and unques-
tioned assumptions. By making visible and tangible the com-
munity’s need for accessible green space, and clearly iden-
tifying the source of the threat to those spaces, the action
clarified the terms of the struggle, terms that had previously
been murky.

BE AN ETHICAL PRANKSTER: The utopian edge of this action is a
world that values — prizes even — human relationships and
community life over profits and losses. For an afternoon,
participants created that world in the street. People gave
gifts instead of exchanging money, sang and laughed and
talked instead of passively consuming. It was prefigurative
politics at its best.

PICK BATTLES BIG ENOUGH TO MATTER BUT SMALL ENOUGH TO WIN:

Although saving the 198 gardens that were up for auction
was an uphill climb, we always felt the fight was winnable.
There was wide support for community gardens throughout
the city, including allies on the city council and within the

370

CASE: Streets into gardens

A poster for Reclaim the Streets' festival of resistance in support of Streets into Gardens action.

mainstream media. Our action was one part of a broad and
powerful campaign that was well organized and well connected.
We were not shocked that we won, but it was a big enough win
to warrant widespread celebration.

CASE: Streets into gardens

371

boycott

WHEN

2001-2005

WHERE

Across North America

PRACTITIONERS

Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Student/Farmworker Alliance
Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida
Just Harvest USA

FURTHER INSIGHT

Yutaka Dirks, “From the jaws of defeat:
Four thoughts on social change strategy,"
Briarpatch Magazine [Nov./Dec., 2011)

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

http://www.ciw-online.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Yutaka Dirks

372

“The boycott win
was an unqualified
victory. All
demands were
met, including the
first-ever ongoing,
direct payment
to farm workers.”

For years, workers in Florida’s
tomato fields have endured
poverty wages and terrible
working conditions. In 1993, a
small, community-based orga-
nization called the Coalition
of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
formed to demand an end to
these unfair labor practices. By
2005, they had won a boycott
campaign against Taco Bell,
one of the largest fast-food
corporations in the world,
raising wages by almost seventy-five percent and setting
an inspiring precedent for farm worker organizing.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers began by develop-
ing a list of concrete demands that, if met, would realize
their vision of social justice in the fields. These were later
refined into “fair food principles” which would bring tan-
gible benefits to their base, and were sufficiently clear that
the workers could know whether or not they had succeeded
in their campaign.

Once they had established their goals, the CIW identified
tomato growers as the group that had the power to give them
what they wanted. The CIW fought a well-organized cam-
paign targeting the growers, engaging in three community-
wide work stoppages and a high-profile hunger strike. The
CIW was able to win the first wage increase in twenty years,
but wages were still well below the poverty level. They realized
that they, the workers alone, did not have the power to force
their target to capitulate, so they looked for another target.

The CIW identified the corporations that bought from
the growers, including Taco Bell, as a secondary target. Taco
Bell’s success, unlike that of the growers, depended on its
public image. The CIW also identified potential allies that
could help them put pressure on their target. They reached
out to students, because Taco Bell targeted them as consum-
ers. They also allied themselves with social justice-oriented
religious groups.

CASE: Taco Bell boycott

In 2001, the CIW launched the boycott of Taco Bell, calling
on the fast-food giant to take responsibility for human rights
violations in their supply chain, to improve wages and working
conditions by passing on a penny-per-pound pay increase to
the workers, and to buy only from Florida growers who passed
this penny per pound payment on to the farm workers.

The ClW-led campaign organized cross-country cara-
vans that held rallies outside Taco Bell restaurants; students
organized petitions to “Boot the Bell” from campus food
courts; religious, labor and community leaders were ap-
proached to publicly endorse the boycott and further isolate
Taco Bell from support; and they directly targeted Taco Bell
headquarters with public hunger strikes and marches.

After four years of actions by the CIW and their allies,
Taco Bell conceded. The boycott win was an unqualified vic-
tory. All demands were met, including the first-ever ongo-
ing, direct payment to farm workers, substantially raising
their wages, and an enforceable code of conduct. The agree-
ment was a clear victory for the workers who struggled for
it against an intransigent target, and helped bring renewed
energy to the fair-food movement.

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Anti-oppression p. 212
Narrative power analysis p. 244

The Taco Bell boycott was successful because the Coalition
of Immokalee Workers succeeded in identifying who was re-
sponsible for their low wages and poor working conditions
and then crafted a strategy that targeted the weakest link.
The fast-food corporations that bought the Florida tomatoes
were vulnerable in a way that growers, the primary targets,
were not. Ultimately, by offering leadership and opportuni-
ties for active participation to a strong network of allies, the
CIW was able to harness enough power to force Taco Bell to
concede to its demands.

WHY IT WORKED

BOYCOTT: While the Taco Bell Boycott went beyond asking
people not to purchase Taco Bell products, it was a useful
centerpiece for the campaign, tapping into a rich history
of boycotts led by exploited and oppressed people, includ-
ing the Montgomery bus boycott and the California grape
boycott. Recalling those powerful examples, the public easily

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Trek p. 90

Mass street action p. 68

CASE: Taco Bell boycott

373

understood the key issues and saw how it could lend its
support to the CIW.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Choose tactics that support
your strategy p. 112
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Bring the issue home p. 106
Enable, don't command p. 132
Reframe p. 168
Make the invisible visible p. 152

CHOOSE YOUR TARGET WISELY: The CIW’s first actions targeted
the growers responsible for wages and working conditions,
but after winning their first wage increase in 1998, it became
apparent that the CIW did not have sufficient power to ex-
tract further concessions. Recognizing that the growers could
be made vulnerable through pressure from the corporations
that bought their tomatoes, the CIW crafted a campaign that
played to their strengths.

SHIFT THE SPECTRUM OF ALLIES: The CIW built a broadbased
campaign that exposed the consumers of Taco Bell’s prod-
ucts to the reality of the working conditions of tomato pickers.
The CIW was able to offer leadership to supporters who were
not farm workers and encourage them to become active, al-
lowing them space to craft their own actions putting pressure
on Taco Bell.

374

CASE: Taco Bell boycott

Coalition of Immokalee workers rally for justice on a secondary target’s doorstep.

CASE: Taco Bell boycott

375

<§>T

CASE STUDY:

ar sands action

WHEN

August-November 2011

WHERE

United States and Canada

PRACTITIONERS

The Tar Sands Action
Indigenous Environmental Network
BOLD Nebraska
350.org
Bill McKibben

FURTHER INSIGHT

Tar Sands Action website

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Duncan M eisel
Joshua Kahn Russell

Because tar sands oil emits four times the carbon dioxide as
standard crude, renowned climate scientist James Hanson has
declared that if the Canadian tar sands were fully developed,
it would be “essentially game over for the climate.” Seeking to
draw a line in the (tar) sands, activists successfully organized
to delay, and possibly stop, TransCanada’s plans to build the
Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 bar-
rels a day of tar sands oil to Texas refineries. As of this writing
it is unclear if the project will re-emerge in another form, but
the movement is girding to defeat any attempted resurrection.

Indigenous communities in northern Alberta, Canada, have
been organizing to stop tar sands expansion for decades, and
while many U.S. environmental groups began to join the fight
around 2007, they had a hard time popularizing the issue in
the United States. This changed in June 2011, when a group of
prominent authors, scientists, Indigenous leaders, and activists,
spearheaded by Bill McKibben, released a joint letter calling
on climate activists to participate in two weeks of daily non-
violent direct action at the White House in Washington, D.C.

The action quickly became a rallying point for activists
working on climate change issues. From August 20 to Septem-
ber 3, 1,253 farmers, teachers, mothers, scientists, celebrities,
Indigenous elders, faith leaders and students were arrested out-
side the White House, garnering international media attention
and galvanizing the environmental movement’s opposition to
the pipeline.

Because building the Keystone XL pipeline required a Pres-
idential Permit to go ahead, organizers chose to target Presi-
dent Obama as the focus of the action see PRINCIPLES: Choose
your target wisely, Points of intervention. Activists were clear to
distinguish between Obama as the target and TransCanada as
the enemy. This distinction yielded a tone that was assertive but
friendly. Even as the campaign interrupted his public speeches,
flooded campaign offices and staged mass arrests, the emphasis
was always on Obama’s campaign promises to “end the tyranny
of oil” and slow the rise of the oceans. By repeating his own
words back to him, activists framed the issue in such a way that
Obama had both a serious liability and a huge opportunity on
his hands: he could side with the people, or with the polluters.

376

CASE: Tar sands action

Of all the tactics employed on the campaign, Obama
officials said they were rattled most by “bird-dogging” inter-
ruptions at high-priced fundraisers because these actions erod-
ed the confidence of Obama’s key financial backers. Even in
disruptive actions, the message was always inviting, remixing
Obama’s own messaging: “President Obama, Yes You Can
Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline.” The goal was to empha-
size the political risks of alienating his environmentalist and
climate-conscious base. This risk was further amplified by pro-
tests around the world, including a mass arrestable sit-in at the
Canadian parliament.

Building on this momentum, a second invitation to action
was issued, this time for thousands of people to surround the
White House on November 6, one year before the next presi-
dential election. This event brought 12,000 people to Obama’s
front door and showcased a wide segment of the environmen-
tal movement, from Indigenous leaders to Nebraska ranch-
ers to college students. Four days later, President Obama sent
the pipeline back for a full 18-month re-review. In response,
Republicans in Congress legislatively forced an accelerated
timeline for approval, which led to the president choosing to
outright deny the rushed permit. This was a definitive victory
against the pipeline, and while TransCanada can still reapply —
forcing us to tight the battle again, it reminds us that most
environmental victories are temporary on their own, and re-
quire continued organizing and pressure (alongside systemic
change) to remain durable.

The tar sands action effectively used Obama’s own words and
supporters against him, framing the issue around the political
risk Obama would be taking if he approved the pipeline. Pho-
tos from the August action accompanied a huge majority of
the stories written or broadcast about the pipeline. The arrests
demonstrated the depth of opposition to the pipeline, with
dispersed actions across the country showing the breadth of
opposition. In addition, some of the actions — at Obama 2012
campaign offices and fundraising events — posed an imme-
diate threat of disrupting Obama’s political machinery while
continuing to raise the profile of the issue.

The action was highly successful communicating its message de-
spite having no action logic see PRINCIPLE: Action Logic. Those

CASE: Tar sands action

THEORIES

Points of intervention p. 250
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Hashta g politics p. 238

WHY IT WORKED

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

377

sitting-in were violating a random law — it is illegal to stand still
in front of the White House because it inhibits tourists from
taking clear pictures. It is illogical for scientists to sit in front of
the White House and get arrested so tourists can take pictures.
But because the action had two weeks to build momentum,
had strict image and tone-discipline, ultra-clear messaging on
banners and signs, and highly sympathetic spokespeople, the
power of this action overcame what it lacked in action logic.
It was highly successful in capturing the public imagination,
getting a remarkable amount of clear media attention, and it
put into motion a campaign that eventually beat back a multi-
billion dollar oil pipeline.

378

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Direct action p. 32
Creative disruption p. 18
Bird-dogging web
Mass street action p. 68

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Choose your target wisely p. 114
Use the power of ritual p. 198
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Kill them with kindness p. 140

SIT-IN: One thousand two hundred and fifty three arrests over
two weeks generated a drumbeat of news stories, trained and
empowered a dedicated core of activists, and provided the visu-
al and narrative campaign hook for the months to come. The
sit-ins set a fire underneath the environmental movement.

HOPE IS A MUSCLE: By simply using Barack Obama’s own words as
organizing slogans, the Tar Sands Action vividly spotlighted his
shortcomings on environmental issues, re-activating a core of
volunteers and supporters from 2008. The campaign positively
affirmed his hopeful statements, holding out the promise of
the same support from environmentalists he enjoyed in 2008
if he were able to live up to those words in his response to the
pipeline.

SHIFT THE SPECTRUM OF ALLIES: This action would not have
worked a year earlier. The tactics and message were suited to
their moment and context. Obama’s environmentalist base was
disillusioned with his failure to live up to his promises, social
movements were riding a global wave of revolutions, and Occu-
py Wall Street was just taking off and giving popular voice to the
efficacy of mass protest. The sit-ins were highly choreographed
and made as “safe” as possible. While to some they may have
appeared insufficiently “hardcore,” they effectively gave passive
allies an entry point into action, identifying the key social blocs
in need of shifting. The vast majority of participants in the tar
sands action indicated it was their first protest experience, let

CASE: Tar sands action

alone their first direct action. This was paired with a grassroots-
led organizing strategy that emphasized local autonomy within
a clear framework. Each stage of the campaign was designed
for participants to take themselves to the next level.

The Tar Sands Action, Washingto, DC, September 3rd, 2011. Over 1,200 people were arrested during this two-week long
action that culminated in President Obama rejecting the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in January of 2012. Photo
by Milan llnyckyj of Tar Sands Action.

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FOR THEM: During the August sit-ins, or-
ganizers extensively documented both the actions and partici-
pants. Photos from the event were made freely available online
and became a key part of news stories about the pipeline for
months to come. Also, every participant had a personal photo
taken at a photo booth at the action training, giving everyone
something to share and remember from the action.

ESCALATE STRATEGICALLY: In a fight over fossil fuel infrastruc-
ture, there is a tendency to jump immediately to physical block-
ade tactics. By proactively setting the tone with disciplined
arrestable actions, the campaign successfully focused energy
from different segments of the environmental movement. The
sit-ins held the promise of escalated actions, but maintained a
tone that discouraged runaway escalation.

CASE: Tar sands action

379

jAk CASE STUDY:

\§Mhe teddy bear catapult

WHEN

April 2001

WHERE

Quebec City

PRACTITIONERS

The Deconstructionist
Institute for Surreal Topology

It was a classic summit protest at the height of the anti-global-
ization movement. Thirty-four heads of state from across the
Americas were gathering in Quebec City to negotiate the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a sweeping trade deal
with deeply anti-democratic provisions. Protests had been
called, tens of thousands were expected to fill the streets, and
a giant fence defended by thousands of riot police was to be
erected around the Old City to keep protesters far from the
convention center.

FURTHER INSIGHT

The Deconstructionist Institute
for Surreal Topology website

http://trb. la/wHrlwq

Press release: “We made the catapult,
Judy Rebick got the $&$"

http://trb.la/zsdG6c

CONTRIBUTED BY

Dave Oswald Mitchell

The teddy-bear catapult and ursine comrades in police custody. Photo by Gareth Lind.

As the summit drew closer and heated debates raged in ac-
tivist circles about how to oppose the FTAA most effectively,
a group calling themselves the Deconstructionist Institute for
Surreal Topology (DIST) circulated a satirical booklet promot-
ing more creative protest tactics: “For those who yawn every
time they see yet another Black Bloc, the Deconstructionist In-
stitute for Surreal Topology presents this brief list of alterna-
tives, to help spark discussion and inject a bit of creativity and
derisive laughter into the mix.”

Their list of protest ideas included the Gary Coleman
Bloc (tactic of choice: continuously walking up to cops and
demanding, “Whatchu talkin’ bout, Willus?”), the Mascot Bloc,

380

CASE: The teddy bear catapult

the Bloc Parents and the Fuchsia Bloc (“dressed in tights and
pink tutus, the Fuchsia Bloc’s role is to follow the Black Bloc
and tease them mercilessly”). DIST also jokingly proposed
challenging the fence around the conference area with a
Monty-Pythonesque Medieval Bloc: “If the man is gonna
turn the summit into a fortress, the Medieval Bloc will lay
siege with gusto. Beautiful battering rams, ladders, siege
towers, Trojan donuts, catapults, and dead cows infected
with the plague.”

It was a good laugh, but seemingly nothing more — until
a public figure sympathetic to the cause contacted the group
and said, “if you can find someone to build a catapult, I’ll
pay for it.” A group of catapult

Activists with
pots and colanders
on their heads
pulled the full-size
catapult up to the
fence and began
gently lobbing
teddy bears into
lines of riot cops.”

The stunt complete, the activists disabled the prop and aban-
doned it to the police who were advancing through clouds of
tear gas. Everyone thought that would be the end of it, but the
police couldn’t bear to be outflanked on the absurdist front:
they retaliated by sending plainclothes officers to snatch a
prominent activist, Jaggi Singh, who had had nothing to do
with the catapult, and charge him with possession of a “danger-
ous weapon”: the prop itself. Singh was held for seventeen days
before being released.

The spurious weapons charge only added fuel to DIST’s
fire, setting off a whole new round of press releases and media
stunts mocking the security establishment, with activists turn-
ing in their “stuffed comrades” (i.e. teddy bears) to local police
stations across the country and sending them to the Canadian
Prime Minister’s office to protest the absurd charge.

enthusiasts in Ottawa agreed
to build the prop (rigged to en-
sure it couldn’t launch anything
very far on the off-chance it was
actually taken for a weapon),
and DIST smuggled it into the
city. On the day of the march,
activists with pots and colanders
on their heads pulled the full-
size catapult up to the fence and
began gently lobbing teddy bears
into lines of riot cops. Mean-
while, other activists disman-
tled the offending fence with
bolt-cutters as cameras rolled.

TACTICS

Direct action p. 32
Mass street action p. 68
Media-jacking p. 12
Hoax p. 54
Street theater web

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Narrative power analysis
Temporary Autonomous
Zone (TAZ) p. 270

CASE: The teddy bear catapult

1.244

381

WHY IT WORKED The catapult action was not just good theater, but also effec-
tive activism. It attacked, both physically and symbolically,
the fence that kept civil society away from trade deal nego-
tiations that would impact everyone. In the end, the protests
were a success: the Summit was a public relations nightmare
for the Canadian government, public sympathy swung toward
the protesters and the hemisphere-wide trade deal was never
signed.

While the literal target of the airborne teddy bears was the
riot police and the politicians behind them, the real target lay
outside the fence. Firstly, the action captivated the public imag-
ination with a media spectacle that exposed the absurdity of
democratic leaders literally “besieged” by citizens asking rea-
sonable questions. Secondly, the action engaged other activists
with two important messages: first, don’t be afraid to confront state
power, and second, when you do so, don’t lose your sense of humor or
lose sight of the broader optics of your actions.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
The real action is your
target's reaction web
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Reframe p. 168
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
Kill them with kindness p. 140
Turn the tables p. 190
Escalate strategically p. 134

SAY IT WITH PROPS: Whether it’s a giant Earth Mother puppet, a
rented woodchipper redecorated into an outsized Enron stock
shredder or a teddy-bear catapult, well-chosen larger-than-life
props can help create a media spectacle and tell a story. By
choosing an absurdist siege engine, DIST neatly exposed the
absurdity of the larger situation: democratic leaders forced to
meet “under siege” by their constituents when making hugely
unpopular decisions.

USE ABSURDITY TO UNDERMINE THE AURA OF AUTHORITY: To oper-
ate, power requires the aura of authority. The man in the uni-
form or the business suit has everything under control. He’s
sober, serious, knows best, and maybe above all, is needed (to
protect you) . Nothing quite undermines this aura (and the ra-
tionale for state violence that goes with it) like laughter, espe-
cially in the context of an absurd situation they don’t know how
to handle. If they react to it according to their normal logic,
they look ridiculous and/or paranoid — whether it’s the Polish
police deciding whether to arrest a bunch of dwarves for going
to a meeting or Canadian police confiscating a teddy bear as a
dangerous weapon.

382

CASE: The teddy bear catapult

USE THE MATERIALS AT HAND: As Yogi Berra said, “When you
come to a fork in the road, take it!” This action succeeded be-
cause those involved responded intelligently and creatively to
the unexpected opportunities that presented themselves: first,
a serious offer of funding in response to an absurd proposal,
and second, a police overreaction that further emphasized the
absurdity of the situation.

SHOW, DON’T TELL. The Canadian security establishment justi-
fied its unprecedented mobilization by stirring fears of violent
protests. But what is more non-violent than a teddy bear? By
building an actual engine of war and choosing to gently fling
teddy bears off of it, DIST found a playful and unexpected way
to demonstrate their commitment to nonviolence and expose
the government’s trumped-up fears as unwarranted.

CASE: The teddy bear catapult

383

®Ti

CASE STUDY:

rail of Dreams

WHEN

January 1, 2010-May 1, 2010

WHERE

Miami to Washington D.C.

PRACTITIONERS

Students Working for Equal Rights

FURTHER INSIGHT

Trail of Dreams website

http://trail2010.org/

CONTRIBUTED BY

Gaby Pacheco

384

On January 1, 2010, four immigrant youth leaders (Carlos
Roa, Felipe Matos, Juan Rodriguez and myself) embarked on
a 1,500 mile walk from Miami, Florida to Washington, D.C.
The long-term goal of this arduous journey was to put a hu-
man face on the immigration debate and counteract the ef-
fect of anti-immigrant portrayals in the mainstream media.
The short-term goal was to put pressure on Washington to fix
a failed system that has kept millions of undocumented mem-
bers of our communities and families in the shadows.

We had four requests. The first was for President Obama,
through an executive action, to stop the detentions and
deportations of students for two years and halt removal pro-
ceedings for people with immediate family members who are
U.S. citizens. The second was the passage of the DREAM Act
(“Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors”) to
allow access to higher education. Third, protection of immi-
grant workers’ rights, and last, the passage of just and humane
immigration reform.

At the core of the Trail of Dreams trek was the desire to
escalate our activism by publicly sharing stories and struggles,
inspiring others to take up similar actions throughout the
United States. The goal was to open hearts and change minds
in order to create much-needed policy change. Over four
months we walked through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina,
North Carolina, and Virginia, finally arriving in Washington,
D.C., on May 1. Each day we walked sixteen to eighteen miles.
Every encounter was an opportunity to share our story, to
plant a seed.

With the help of hosting communities, we held events
where we broke bread and invited people to share their sto-
ries, and to organize and fight for their dreams. We were
weclcomed by congregations from various faiths, including
the Lutherans, Unitarian Universalists, United Methodists,
Christ Churchers, Catholics, Baptists and others. We spoke to
crowds of white conservatives, conducted a joint event with Af-
rican-Americans in Georgia, and of course reached out to the
Latino base, immigrants and citizens alike. The trek would
have not been possible without the support of a small but ded-
icated group, including a project manager, a logistics coordi-

CASE: Trail of Dreams

THEORIES

Hamoq & hamas p. 236
Action logic p. 208
Points of intervention p. 250

The Trail of Dreams, 2010.

nator, a driver and an on-site coordinator. Our organization,
Students Working for Equal Rights, set up local teams along
the route to ensure our safety and well-being.

We faced many challenges. One was blisters, body aches
and walking through one of the coldest winters in recent
memory. The other was the backlash from anti-immigrant
hate groups, including the Klu Klux Klan, which targeted the
Trail with a rally in an unsuccessful attempt to intimidate the
walkers. Additionally, three of us faced the constant risk of
deportation by coming into direct contact with federal immi-
gration authorities.

The Trail of Dreams inspired a sleeping giant, immigrant WHY IT WORKED
youth, to take their stories to the streets. It inspired young
people to share their dreams publicly, including youth in
Illinois who organized “coming-out actions” declaring, “we
are undocumented and unafraid.” In Arizona, five immigrant
youths sat-in at Senator John McCain’s office, while several
solidarity walks took place across the country. The Trail of
Dreams caught the eye of both local and national media, with
over 300 articles written about the walk and interviews with
trekkers on several major networks. The trek inspired a na-
tion of DREAMers and allies to fight for the passage of the
DREAM Act, which, while not yet passed into law, remains
within reach.

CASE: Trail of Dreams

385

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Direct action p. 32
Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Distributed action p. 36

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180
Create levels of participation web
Create online/offline synergy web
Think narratively p. 186
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Lead with sympathetic characters p. 146
We are all leaders p. 202
Do the media's work for them p. 124
Take risks but take care p. 182
Make new folks welcome p. 150
Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196

TREK: By creating a national support network and taking our
demands on the road, we were able to directly challenge racist
and anti-immigrant policies. As openly undocumented youth
with the legitimacy of a broad-based movement behind us,
we were able to meet with sheriffs, police officers, immigra-
tion agents and other officials without being detained or de-
ported. We proved that the power of people is stronger than
inhumane laws and a broken immigration system.

EVERYONE HAS BALLS/OVARIES OF STEEL: There is nothing more
powerful than letting your heart lead you. If we had listened
to all the people who told us this walk was “crazy,” “suicidal,”
“not real organizing” or “impossible,” the trek never would
have happened. We didn’t let fear paralyze us; we knew that if
we opened our hearts to the community, people would listen
and respond. We followed our hearts and sparked a movement.

SHIFT THE SPECTRUM OF ALLIES: Although one of our goals was
to inspire our community, another was to reach out to people
who were misguided by the media. We wanted to speak to
those who felt that we did not belong. We wanted to share with
them our stories and allow them to decide for themselves. After
talking with us, many anti-immigrants shifted their position.

KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS: We didn’t fight hate with hate but
rather with love. When a man told Felipe he was less than hu-
man because all he was an “illegal,” Felipe responded, “God
bless you.” When a group of young people came to disrupt our
walk with a big Confederate flag, we walked with them and
shared our stories until they folded the flag and left. When we
went to Arizona and met with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, “America’s
toughest sheriff” and a tireless crusader against liberal im-
migration policies, I hugged him. I told him that he was our
brother who had gone astray, that he and I were equals, and
that our “papers” were in our blood. I touched his heart with
my right hand and said that I hoped he would change. He
didn’t arrest us, and that day we faced each other as equals.

386

CASE: Trail of Dreams

Charlotte Ryan

CASE STUDY:

Virtual Streetcorners

WHEN

June 2010

WHERE

Greater Boston

PRACTITIONERS

John Ewing

FURTHER INSIGHT

Virtual Streetcorners website

www.virtuaicorners.net

Front page story on Boston Globe

http://tinyurl.com/25zgepk

Blog entry on PBS.org

http://www.pbs.org/idealab/john_ewing/

Profile piece on WGBH TV

http://bit.ly/v80tkD

Atlantic Magazine online interview

http://bit.ly/tSD9qO

CONTRIBUTED BY

John Ewing

388

“The concept
was simple and
easily understood,
but at the same
time led to profound
experiences ”

From “red-lining” in the ’50s to
busing in the ’70s and recent
police harassment of Harvard
professor Henry Louis Gates,

Boston has been a crucible of
racial tension in America for
decades. Typical of many large
cities, segregation along ethnic
and class lines still often deter-
mines where people live and
how they navigate the city. It is common for people living in
one neighborhood to know very little about, or to never have
traveled to, adjacent areas of the city.

Coolidge Corner in Brookline and Dudley Square in Roxbury
are hubs of their respective communities. Brookline has a
large Jewish population that migrated in the 1960s from the
Dudley area in Roxbury, so there’s a historical connection.
Roxbury is now a black and Latino neighborhood. Despite
being just over two miles apart and connected by a city bus,
people living in these neighborhoods rarely visit the other.

Virtual Streetcorners was a public art installation inviting
people to close that gap and experience the city in a new way.
Using technology developed to bridge much larger geograph-
ical distances, the project instead traversed the social bound-
aries that separate two neighborhoods.

Throughout the month of June 2010, large glass store-
fronts in both neighborhoods were transformed into giant
video screens providing pedestrians at each location a portal
into the others’ world. Running 24/7, these life-size screen
images and AV technology facilitated real-time interaction
between residents of the two communities. A passerby could
look into the window in one location and see out the window
in the other, and be able to converse with whomever might be
standing there.

In addition to spontaneous interactions, there were many
programmed activities. Local politicians — from city council-
ors to former presidential nominee Michael Dukakis — joined
artists, educators, activists and religious leaders in street cor-
ner dialogues on a range of issues. Citizen journalists were

CASE: Virtual Streetcorners

hired to come to the screens and deliver daily news reports
about what was happening in each neighborhood.

The project generated a great deal of excitement and at-
tracted a wide range of participants. Ironically in this era of
technology, people treated it as something magical when it was
simply a street corner from across town appearing in the win-
dow. Many found it entertaining to connect in this way. Others
used the opportunity to tackle more philosophical or socio-
political issues. “There was an odd sense of safety in talking
with someone I had never met,” said one participant. “It’s as if
the virtuality of the whole thing emboldened us to say things
we’d never say if we simply sat next to each other on a bus.”

The piece touched a nerve and tackled an issue rarely
addressed head-on. The concept was simple and easily under-
stood — “connecting neighborhoods which are next to each
other yet ‘worlds apart’ ” — but at the same time led to profound
experiences. It invited people to participate in a solution rather
than attacking them for being racist and classist. We hired
community organizers in advance who worked for months
laying the groundwork, and had strong coalitions with trusted
local organizations bridging class and race lines. It worked on
different levels, from simple commentary and observation to
involved participation.

The tech was complex and far from foolproof. If tech is going
to be put to use by the public, it needs to be rock-solid, even if
it means sacrificing some utility.

ART INTERVENTION: Public art is one of the few ways to have a
large art project seen by tens of thousands of people without
having to shoehorn your ideas into the art gallery system. One
of the advantages of contemporary art is that it can include
almost anything, including activism, education, science and
community organizing. The project relied on audience par-
ticipation to create its meaning, and was accessible to audi-
ences that wouldn’t necessarily attend galleries.

NAME THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: Virtual Streetcorners spot-
lighted issues that are always in front of us but that we tend to

THEORIES

Anti-oppression p. 212
Environmental justice p. 228
Points of intervention p. 250
Action logic p. 208
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
Story of self web
Social sculpture web
Art as life web

WHY IT WORKED

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

KEY TACTIC

used

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

CASE: Virtual Streetcorners

389

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Create levels of participation web
Take direction from the
most impacted web
Consider your audience p. 118
Make cross-class alliances web

ignore on a day-to-day basis. Passersby were brought face to
face with people from a different class and race background,
pointing up how lack of diversity, rather than diversity, is in
fact the social norm.

SHOW, DON’T TELI The project concisely visualizes the problem
but leaves an opening for people to respond based on their
own experience. Statistics could convey a similar message,
but the compelling narrative and reliance on community
participation made the project more engaging than yet
another opinion piece on Boston’s racial problems.

SIMPLE RULES CAN HAVE GRAND RESULTS: Virtual Streetcorners
provided a medium and an underlying narrative, but then left
it up to participants to determine their own experience. It
facilitated a discussion rather than voicing an opinion.

LAY THE GROUNDWORK: On the face of things, the project was
very simple — set up video conferencing between two street
corners so people can talk to each other. In reality, however, it
took years of background work: researching history, thinking
through the interactive design and building relation-
ships with residents and community organizations in both
neighborhoods.

390

CASE: Virtual Streetcorners

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www.virtaalcorncrs.net byjohnewing S Q) nefa p»«ovio*«

Virtual Streetcorners bus ad.

CASE: Virtual Streetcorners

391

CASE STUDY:

Whose Tea Party?

WHEN

April 15, 1998 [Tax Day]

WHERE

Boston

PRACTITIONERS

United for a Fair Economy [UFE]
Art for a Fair Economy
Rich People’s Liberation Front

CONTRIBUTED BY

Andrew Boyd

Two Republican Congressmen, Dick Armey from Texas and
Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, have come to Boston to promote
their snake oil proposals for a flat tax and national sales tax,
two initiatives that would dramatically shift the tax burden
off the wealthy and onto low- and moderate-income working
families.

They’ve set up a classic photo opportunity by inviting na-
tional TV and print media to the Boston Harbor Tea Party
Ship Museum, where they plan to symbolically throw the
entire IRS tax code into Boston Harbor. With the cameras
rolling, they step up to the railing of the Tea Party boat, ready
to heave forth an enormous trunk containing the tax code.

Suddenly, two protesters from United for a Fair Economy,
a Boston-based NGO working for greater economic equality,
paddle into sight in a small dinghy. One of them is in a hard
hat, the other clutching a plastic baby doll. They paddle the
precarious “Working Family Life Raft” into position directly
below where Armey and Tauzin are standing and plead, “Your
flat tax will sink the working family!” and “You’ll drown us
with your sales tax!” Other UFE protesters, who have snuck
onto the Tea Party ship and are dressed in fancy suits and
dresses, start egging on the Congressmen, chanting, “Sink
’em with the sales tax!” and “Drown ’em with the flat tax!”

Armey and Tauzin stand paralyzed on the boat. Their
handlers go into a panic as UFE staff approach the media
with press releases, explaining the symbolism of the protest
and offering evidence of how both the flat tax and the na-
tional sales tax will sink working families.

Finally, not knowing what else to do, they throw the tax
code trunk into the harbor, swamping the fragile life raft
and plunging UFE Education Director Chris Hartman, UFE
financial manager Kristin Barralli, and plastic baby doll Ve-
ronica into Boston Harbor.

Their media stunt hijacked out from under them, Repre-
sentatives Tauzin and Armey retreat to their limousine, which
is now surrounded by cheering members of the Rich People’s
Liberation Front, a UFE theater group, holding signs reading,
“We love you Armey and Tauzin!” “Tax cuts for us, not our
maids,” “Free the Forbes 400,” and “Rich folks love the flat tax!”

CASE: Whose Tea Party?

Quickly, images of the up-
ended Working Families Life
Raft are broadcast around the
planet through hourly runs
on CNN and other networks.

The Reuters International sto-
ry is titled, “GOP Tax Photo
Op Backfires.” The Associated
Press reports, “Protesters Use
Tax Day For Batting Practice.”

Rush Limbaugh chortles that
he was glad the UFE protesters
got wet. UFE staff conduct live
TV interviews and radio feeds
all afternoon describing the
protest and why the flat tax and
sales tax will hurt working fami-
lies. The next day, the Boston Globe and dozens of other daily
papers run a three-photo sequence of the raft’s demise.

For UFE activists, it’s just another day fighting the power
by combining education, humor, direct action, research, me-
dia savvy, and nautical skills.

“The protesters
understood the
symbolism of
the COP event,
and instead of
disrupting or
denouncing it,
they participated
in it, and thus were
able to reframe it”

THEORIES

Action logic p. 208
Ethical spectacle p. 230
Narrative power analysis p. 244
Points of intervention p. 250
Activist realpolitik web

“Pranks are symbolic warfare,” Abbie Hoffman once said,
and this action is a perfect illustration of that maxim. The
protesters understood the symbolism of the GOP event,
and instead of disrupting or denouncing it, they partici-
pated in it. By accepting the original symbolism at face
value, UFE was able to extend and reinterpret it. What
was initially posed, however disingenuously, as an act of
liberation from a despised tax code, was revealed as a
dumping of society’s tax burden onto the shoulders of or-
dinary people.

WHY IT WORKED

MEDIA-JACKING: The congressmen set up the event and sent
out the press releases. It was their name recognition (and
PR budget) that drew the media coverage. But the UFE stunt
hijacked it out from under them. Two ordinary people (and
a doll) getting capsized by a couple of congressmen is far
more interesting than the hokey set-piece event the suits had
planned. If the intervention hadn’t been so ballsy, dramatic,

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Direct Action p. 32
Guerrilla Theatre p. 52

CASE: Whose Tea Party?

393

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Think narratively p. 186
Deploy sympathetic characters p. 146
Reframe p. 168
Make the invisible visible p. 152
Play to the audience that isn't there p. 160
Shorn, don't tell p. 174
Make it funny web
Stay on message p. 178
Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136

394

Republican lawmakers had their media event hijacked out from under them in this classic example of media-jacking.
The “Working Family Life Raft" was capsized seconds later as the lawmakers dropped the tax code into Boston Harbor.
(United for a Fair Economy)

and entertaining, the media wouldn’t have followed UFE as
they flipped the event away from GOP talking points.

PUT YOUR TARGET IN A DECISION DILEMMA: Once the congress-
men were caught by surprise, they had two choices: go ahead
with their plan and drop the trunk of tea onto the life raft, or
back down, sparing the ordinary folks down below the conse-
quences of their selfish actions. Either way, they would lose:
either they participated in demonstrating the damage their
policies would cause, or they conceded the truth of that dam-
age and were seen as rethinking their controversial stance.

DO YOUR RESEARCH: The UFE activists sleuthed out the crucial
details by calling up the congressmen’s office and pretending
to be supporters planning to show up and cheer them on, and
designed their action accordingly. UFE also scoped out the

CASE: Whose Tea Party?

physical site beforehand, identifying a good hiding place for
the raft.

CAPTURE THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE: The congressmen didn’t
know tht the little raft was coming. They didn’t realize that
the Rich People’s Liberation Front was in their midst until
the trap had been sprung. Seizing the initiative allowed UFE
to steal the show. The congressmen being caught by surprise
itself became part of the media story.

DO THE MEDIA’S WORK FOR IT: UFE didn’t just pull off the prank
and hope for the best from the media, they guided the media
through every element of the story. The organization’s codi-
rector (in a straight, nontheatrical role) worked the media
both before and after the stunt. He handed out press releases
and gave the cameramen a heads-up, suggesting they set a
wide angle to capture the larger scene that was about to un-
fold. Afterwards, he was available on the spot (and the rest of
the day by phone) for expert commentary addressing both
the prank and the deeper issues to which it spoke.

CASE: Whose Tea Party?

395

CASE STUDY:

Wisconsin Capitol occupation

WHEN

Spring 2011

WHERE

Madison, Wisconsin

CONTRIBUTED BY

Duncan M eisel

From February 14 to early March 2011, opponents of Governor
Scott Walker’s legislation to strip civic unions of collective bar-
gaining rights filled Wisconsin’s state capitol with a non-stop
protest that became one of the largest labor mobilizations
in the U.S. in a generation. Though the protests were ulti-
mately unsuccessful, they heralded a major watershed in the
labor movement’s resistance to austerity cuts.

Protests began shortly after Gov. Walker proposed his
legislation. On February 14, a group of unionized teaching
assistants from the University of Wisconsin at Madison led a
Valentine’s Day-themed protest at the capitol, joined by labor
and student groups. Labor-student collaboration became a
model for the remainder of the organizing, as state employees
used their workplaces and community roles to contact people
not immediately affected, widening the struggle and helping
provoke a political crisis in the state.

Wisconsin state law allowed for the capitol to remain open
as long as public debate continued about a pending bill. The
teaching assistants noticed that the senate had failed to set
a limit on the number of speakers on a floor debate about
Walker’s bill, and so signed up thousands of people to offer
testimony. This kept debate open indefinitely, as well as the
capitol itself, and eventually turned the occupation into a
twenty-four-hour speak-out, with a microphone set up in the
middle of the rotunda. The microphone served as an invita-
tion to everyone to be heard at the protest, and triggered an
important shift in tone and approach. What had begun as
a simple defense of workers’ rights now shifted to become
an inclusive forum for multiple groups hurt by budget cuts.
The boldness and persistence of the tactic galvanized thou-
sands of people to join in, and within days 70,000 people
were marching to oppose the Governor’s budget.

Protests were also well-coordinated with progressive and
Democratic legislators. Three days after protests began,
fourteen senate Democrats fled the state of Wisconsin to
deny the GOP a quorum. This bought political space and
time in addition to the literal space and time that had been
seized in the capitol building.

Additionally, the occupation focused attention and sup-

CASE: Wisconsin Capitol occupation

Protesters crowd the rotunda of the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin in early 2011. The mass outpouring of both
labor and students was a key to power of the occupation. Photo by Emily Mills.

port by connecting with other movements and national pro-
gressive media networks. The Egyptian revolution was in full
flower at the time and lent energy and inspiration to the
Wisconsin encampment. Protesters carried Egyptian flags,
and several Egyptian revolutionaries sent support in the
form of pizzas ordered from local business to be delivered
to the capitol. Solidarity pizzas then rolled in from across
the world. The occupation was also one of the first to use
continuous livestreaming to document itself.

Eventually, Governor Walker’s legislation was passed in
a legally suspect parliamentary gambit, and the occupation
forces switched to an electoral recall strategy.

Buoyed by both a proud Wisconsin progressive tradition
and a national sense of disenfranchisement, the Wisconsin
Capitol Occupation effectively transformed an iconic public
space into an accessible forum to voice multiple grievances
against budget austerity in America. The protests became a
symbol of how and why to fight back against budget cuts, as
public employees connected with community members.

After the bill was passed, the fourteen senators returned.
A debate ensued. Mainstream organized labor encouraged
protesters to bring the occupation to a close, in order to

CASE: Wisconsin Capitol occupation

THEORIES

Pillars of support p. 248
The shock doctrine p. 262
Points of intervention p. 250
Cultural hegemony p. 222

WHY IT WORKED

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

397

focus energy on an electoral strategy to recall Republican
state senators and Governor Walker. Other coalition groups
and individuals, notably the International Workers of the
World (IWW) contingent, argued for expanding the people-
powered dimension of the struggle into a statewide general
strike. The IWW was outvoted. The senate recall effort fell
short, and at the time of this writing, the fate of the guber-
natorial recall effort is unknown. The people-power path
not pursued. . .well, we’ll never quite know.

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Mass street action p. 68
Blockade p. 14
Direct action p. 32
Public filibuster p. 86
Creative disruption p. 18

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172
Use the law, don't be afraid of it p. 196
Escalate strategically p. 134
If protest is made illegal, make
daily life a protest p. 138
Be both expressive and
insturmental web
Put your target in a
decision dilemma p. 166
We are all leaders p. 202
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

398

OCCUPATION: The occupation of the capitol itself provided a
focal point for protesters trying to unite broad communi-
ties against the budget cuts and created a space for diverse
groups to work together to solve common problems. Holding
the space and Riling it with sound and people united diverse
voices, while also giving them a way to be heard.

NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH A DRUM CIRCLE: Although the occupa-
tion did use drums to quite a useful effect, the cliquish “drum
circle” was never the model. Instead, everyone was invited to
participate. The microphone at the center of the Capitol ro-
tunda was a microcosm of the rest of the protest. Participants
spoke through through the mic and could hear their voices
amplified by the movement that surrounded them.

LEAD WITH SYMPATHETIC CHARACTERS: The protests gained
strength by placing public employees front and center, emphasiz-
ing their role in the community. Madison teachers were some of
the first tojoin the initial protests en masse, and their connection
to students and parents helped humanize a struggle otherwise
trapped in the abstraction of budgetary issues and collective
bargaining. The visuals of firemen in full gear on the steps of the
capitol gave the protests a heroic and all-American legitimacy.

MAINTAIN NONVIOLENT DISCIPLINE: The dedicated nonviolence
of the protests made cooperation with police easier and kept
the capitol open longer. Madison and capitol police support-
ed the occupation by refusing to enforce illegal orders to shut
down the capitol, and even sent off-duty officers to sleep in
the capitol to show support.

CASE: Wisconsin Capitol occupation

Photo by Jena Pope.

CASE: Wisconsin Capitol occupation

399

CASE STUDY:

Yomango

WHEN

July 2002-present

WHERE

Spain, then global

PRACTITIONERS

Yomango

FURTHER INSIGHT

Yomango

http://yomango.net

Wired, “Shoplifting as Social
Commentary," August 25, 2005

http://trb. la/yqtQFj

CONTRIBUTED BY

Leonidas Martin Saura

On July 5, 2002, a strange new brand began cropping up
in the streets of Barcelona. That day, at the height of sales
season, more than fifty people rushed through the center of
Barcelona to the Bershka clothing store to perform the very
first Yomango fashion show.

The show lived up to its “magical” billing: a simple object
was turned into a symbol of another way of living. To be
more precise, a ten-euro dress was spirited from the store,
later to show up as a work of art at one of the most important
art museums in the city. All the activities of Yomango were
open, public and publicized.

The name “Yomango” and the lifestyle it celebrates refers
to mangar, a Spanish slang term meaning “to shoplift,” par-
ticularly from multinational corporations. The concept of
ethical shoplifting had suddenly acquired public visibility.

The Yomango brand is itself a reappropriation, or de-
tournement, of the wildly popular Mango brand see TACTIC:
Detournement/ Culture jamming. By adding a pronominal pre-
fix (yo, or “I” in Spanish) to the clothing company’s name,
the modified brand takes on a different meaning entirely:
I swipe. Yomango disrupts the primary goal of the original
brand, turning it into a new direct-action practice based on
the widespread habit of shoplifting.

At first glance, this may seem like a simple surrender to
the greedy logic of capitalism, but nothing could be further
from the truth. As Yomango states on its website, its only
interest in commodities is “to make something new happen
in their midst, to push them to the point of turning them
into something else, something that has nothing to do with
producing a way of life that is dedicated to consumption, but
rather moves toward inventing new possible ways of living.”

Through its actions and its philosophy, but also through
its style and design, Yomango turns the impulse to shoplift
into a movement, a method, an art. For instance, Yomango
introduced designs that were not only cool, but also served
as gear for shoplifting, such as a “jacket of a thousand pock-
ets,” in which all the many pockets were interconnected.
When an object is surreptitiously placed in the jacket, it sim-
ply disappears, only to be discovered again sometime later,

CASE: Yomango

THEORIES

Ethical spectacle p. 230
Action logic p. 20
The tactics of everyday life p. 268
The commons p. 220
Capitalism p. 216

The Cookie Bag (Yomago Fashion)

perhaps in the safety of your own home.

Thanks to a proliferation of workshops in arts institu-
tions and social organizations in cities around the world,
Yomango’s actions have expanded since the anti-brand
first debuted. The website — built on an open-publishing
framework enabling people to exchange information and
experiences with anyone else captivated by the Yomango
brand — also contributed to its spread. Various Yomango
communities began appearing in different parts of the

CASE: Yomango

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Distributed action p. 36
Direct action p. 32
Identity correction p. 60
Flash mob p. 46

world: Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Germany, Italy, as well as
other Spanish cities including Madrid and Bilbao.

Though it celebrates individual acts of self-liberation, the
Yomango brand also gestures toward mass political action,
with actions targeting various multinational corporations,
such as the “Yomango-Tango,” in which a crowd of Yomango
dancers in Argentina liberated hundreds of bottles of Cham-
pagne from a Carrefour supermarket, and then uncorked
and drank them in a branch of Banco Santander — both en-
tities directly implicated in the Argentinian economic crisis.

These actions have served as brand advertisements as
enticing as the glittering billboards in the heart of the me-
tropolis. In this way, the Yomango brand spreads through
direct-action events and highly diverse avenues of communi-
cation: from the alternative media to the official press, from
supermarkets to activist meetings, and from art catalogs to
the Internet. The anti-brand is designed so that any person
or group can reappropriate it in whatever manner he/she/it
chooses, transforming it, plagiarizing it, elaborating on it.

Yomango. You want it? You got it!

Before Yomango, shoplifting was a clandestine practice.
Yomango ’s actions, designs, and advertisements made the
action visible, celebrating it as a way of life. Yomango worked
both on a personal level by offering practical tools to liber-
ate products from the multinationals, and on a collective
level by creating an international community united by col-
lective actions and workshops.

ETHICAL SHOPLIFTING: Yomango celebrates stealing — not from
people, but from large transnational corporations which
show no respect for workers’ rights, the environment, or any-
thing other than their bottom line. In many cases Yomango ’s
actions have been supported or directly fostered by employ-
ees of these large chains, some of whom have become active
members of Yomango chapters.

Stealing (labor, time, ideas, lives) is what transnationals do.
What Yomango does is ethical shoplifting-, returning to the peo-
ple what the transnationals have stolen.

CASE: Yomango

BRAND OR BE BRANDED: Yomango is a brand that appropriates
and undermines other brands. Yomango captures the desires
these brands harness and liberates them from the power of
the market. Like other brands, it promises a lifestyle, except
what Yomango is “selling” costs nothing at all. Yomango is a
brand that exists outside the market.

CREATE LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION: Yomango opens up a broad
and diverse participatory process. All the ideas and tools,
as well as the Yomango brand itself, were created with the
anonymous participation of many people. In this sense, Yo-
mango is what organizers call a “social brand.” By making
its tools freely available, Yomango offers a kind of partici-
pation that may be less visible than your average multina-
tional brand, but much more extensive and integrated into
the day-to-day lives of participants.

KEY PRINCIPLE

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel p. 136
Know your cultural terrain p. 142
Turn the tables p. 190
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200
Take risks, but take care p. 182
Enable, don't command p. 132
Balance art and message p. 100
Make your actions both concrete
and communicative p. 154

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: Shoplifting is widespread, but re-
mains largely invisible. Yomango makes shoplifting visible,
transforming a clandestine gesture of non-cooperation with
consumer culture into a brand, a fashion and a lifestyle that
embodies a critique of consumer capitalism.

CASE: Yomango

403

own CASE STUDY

WHEN What happened'?

WHERE

EPIGRAPH

PRACTITIONERS

FURTHER INSIGHT

CONTRIBUTED BY

404

CASE: Write your own CASE STUDY

WHY IT WORKED

KEY TACTIC

used

OTHER TACTICS USED:

KEY PRINCIPLES

at work

OTHER PRINCIPLES AT WORK:

THEORIES

The modular format of Beautiful Trouble allows the collection
to expand endlessly to reflect new tactical breakthroughs,
underrepresented areas of struggle and overlooked pearls
of wisdom.

CASE: Write your own CASE STUDY

405

PKACTITIOKEHS

SOME OF THE SHOULDERS

WE STAND ON

Brief write-ups of some of the people and groups
that inspire us to be better changemakers.

“I’d rather be a lightning bolt than a seismograph

— Ken Kesey (when asked why he’d rather be
a cultural activist than a writer)

Whether it’s groups (Greenpeace, The Center for Tactical Magic),
lone artists (Banksy), mini-movements (Orange Alternative, The
Dutch Provos) or tiny collectives (Gran Fury), a vast tapestry of
pranksters and rebel dreamers, both living and dead, have given
our movements their singular style and sense. The tour starts now...

ASSEMBLED BY ZACK M ALITZ / WRITTEN BY ZACK MALITZ, MAXINE SCHOEFER-WULF & JESSE BARRON

TACTIC

Direct action p. 32
Mass street action p. 68

PRINCIPLE

Use your radical fringe
to slide the Overton window p. 200

SOURCES

ACT-UP website

http://www.actupny.org

Global Nonviolent Action Database, “U.S.
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP)
demands access to drugs, 1987-89"

http://trb.la/yhXiOu

Detailed scenes from ACT-UP actions

http://www.actupny.org/

divatv/synopsis75.html

ACT-UP

Founded in 1987, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP)
is an international non-partisan group dedicated to ending
the AIDS crisis. ACT-UP utilizes direct action and devotes
itself to political agitation around legislation and policy changes
that can make a difference in the lives of AIDS-affected indi-
viduals. During its peak years, ACT-UP spent much of its time
focused on drug availability and pricing, placing significant
pressure on the FDA through visible protest and demonstra-
tion. These actions gained considerable media attention and
contributed to a twenty percent reduction in price of the drug
AZT. ACT-UP stunts have included chaining themselves to the
VIP balcony of the New York Stock Exchange, shutting down
the FDA, and storming of a CBS Evening News broadcast. The
organization emphasizes the need for public education as well
as policies to prohibit discrimination in areas like housing,
insurance, treatment and employment. ACT-UP has seen a
recent decline in membership, but chapters continue to meet
and its creative protest tactics have had a lasting influence on
subsequent protest movements.

TACTIC

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

THEORY

Society of the spectacle p. 26 6

CASE

Occupy Wall Street web

SOURCES

Adbusters website

http://www.adbusters.org

Activist Cash, “Adbusters"
http://trb.la/yl8Q1S

Adbusters

Kalle Lasn was in a supermarket, about to pay a quarter for
use of a shopping cart, when the idea of Adbusters came to him.
Soon after, in 1989, Adbusters magazine was released in Van-
couver as a local quarterly, chock-full of “culture jamming” de-
sign: the alteration and parody of advertisements for political
effect. Adbusters’ editorial line is decidedly anti-consumerist,
aiming to promote media literacy and resist corporate power.
The magazine is perhaps best known as the source of the call
to action that inspired the occupation of Zuccotti Park and the
Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.

408

PRACTITIONERS

April 6 Youth Movement (Egypt)

The April 6 Youth Movement played a key role in ending Hosni
Mubarak’s twenty-nine-year stint as Egypt’s president. It
began as a Facebook group expressing solidarity with protest-
ing industrial workers in al-Mahalla al-Kubra. The protests
escalated to calls for a national strike, and on April 6, 2008,
thousands of Egyptians flooded the streets. They were met
with violent repression by police forces, resulting in four deaths
and 400 arrests. For the next two years, members studied the
nonviolent tactics of Serbian and Ukrainian youth movements
as well as methods for evading government surveillance and
harassment. In 2009 and 2010 they attempted to replicate the
April 6, 2008 strike, but the regime was able to obstruct most
of the group’s activities. Finally, galvanized by the success of
the Tunisian revolution, the April 6 Youth Movement’s leaders
announced a day of action: January 25, 2011. The subsequent
protests, which centered on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, ultimately
toppled Mubarak’s regime and led to a transfer of power to
the Egyptian military. According to Mohamad Adel, a found-
ing member of the April 6 Youth Movement, the group is now
focused on “the building of the nation and (exerting) pressure
on government and society in order to complete the process
of democratic reform in Egypt.”

Art and Revolution Collective

The Art and Revolution Collective was a San Francisco group
that worked in the carnivalesque puppet-and-mask perfor-
mance style made famous by Bread and Puppet Theater. Their
first major action was at the Democratic National Convention
in Chicago in 1996 and involved a twenty-foot-tall puppet
called the “Corporate Tower of Power.” To draw attention to
Chevron Texaco, they brought kids to the gates of a California
oil refinery to hold up paintings of their visions of the future.
They also dressed up like salmon and “swam” in a forest to
protest logging. Like Bread and Puppet, Art and Revolution
often displayed generalized messages on large banners as part
of their performances, tying the action to larger political and
philosophical ideas (“restorative justice”). Often these mes-
sages snuck into newspapers when photographers, snapping
the giant puppets, captured the banners without meaning to.

PRACTITIONERS

TACTIC

Occupation p. 78
Flash mob p. 46

PRINCIPLE

Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

SOURCES

Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, “Egypt 6 Youth Movement"

http://trb.la/zbDHym

April 6 Youth Movement Facebook

http://trb.la/xOID3m

TACTIC

Carnival protest web

PRINCIPLE

Balance art and message p. 100

Make your actions

concrete and communicative p. 154

SOURCES

Sierra Club, “Street Theater,

Puppet Politics "

http://trb.la/zkosHO

Artist Network of Refuse & Resist!

TACTIC

Artistic vigil p. 10

PRINCIPLE

Use the power of ritual p. 198
Stay on message p. 178

SOURCES

Artist Network of Refuse
and Resist! website

http://trb.la/z1yCLC

Refuse and Resist! website

http://www.refuseandresist.org

The Artist Network (AN) of Refuse & Resist! (R&R!) used art
to create a colorful culture and community of resistance. R&R!
was a non-partisan, national activist organization, founded in
New York in 1987 by lawyers, artists, activists, students and
other youth who saw a trend in the U.S. toward greater state
control. Founded in 1997, AN connected engaged artists to
members of the resistance movement and put out calls to art-
ists to use their tools for the cause. Some AN projects include
“Inside the Culture of Resistance,” an ongoing series of inter-
views with socially conscious artists, and “Not in Our Name,”
a statement resisting the political direction the U.S. has taken
since 9/11. On September 22, 2001, 100 artists wearing all
black stood in silence in Union Square, holding signs reading
“OUR GRIEF IS NOT A CRY FOR WAR.” Two more such per-
formances took place at Union Square, and a larger number
of artists repeated the action in Times Square.

TACTIC

Artistic vigil p. 10

PRINCIPLE

Balance art and message p. 100
This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 188

SOURCES

Bread and Puppet Theater website

http://breadandpuppet.org

Bread and Puppet Theater

The Bread and Puppet Theater wrote in their 1984 Cheap Art
Manifesto: “ART IS FOOD. You can’t EAT it BUT it FEEDS
you.” Their name refers to the practice of giving out free
bread after each of their performances. Although their early
work focused on issues specific to New York, their huge pup-
pets on stilts were a fixture of anti-Vietnam War and other
major protests. In 1970, Bread and Puppet left New York for
Vermont, where they set up first at Goddard College and later
on farmland in Glover. It was there that their most famous
event, “Our Domestic Resurrection Circus,” drew tens of thou-
sands of people for one weekend each year until 1998. Since
then, the Theater has produced a carnival every weekend
from June through September. Bread and Puppet is a non-
profit, sustaining itself largely with revenues from European
and American tours of their productions. The group’s pup-
pets are displayed at the Bread and Puppet Museum, an old
red barn in Glover.

410

PRACTITIONERS

The Center for Tactical Magic

The Center for Tactical Magic (CTM) is a Bay Area collective
that creates installations and exhibits that subvert the role of
illegitimate power in society. Notable for the historical and
technological components of dieir actions, CTM often re-purposes
established symbols of oppressive power in unexpected, anti-op-
pressive ways. One such action involved a Merry Pranksters-like
VW bus filled with waterbeds and suspended from a crane —
a participatory experience that was also an allusion to a form
of medieval torture called a “witch net.” Not all their actions have
grim back stories; CTM exhibited “magic wands” of all kinds
(including vibrators and airport security metal detectors) at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and designed a system that
could detect illegal logging by recording the distressed chirps of
crickets. Their patron saint would be the early twentieth-century
magician and polymath Aleister Crowley, whom the group fre-
quently quotes in their erudite and sometimes arcane literature.

TACTIC

Advanced leafleting p. 8
Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

PRINCIPLE

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

SOURCES

Center for Tactical Magic website

http://www.tacticalmagic.org

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is a community-
based farmworker organization headquartered in Immokalee,
Florida, with over 4,000 members. The CIW seeks modern
working conditions and fair treatment for farmworkers, and
empowers individual members and Florida farmworkers as a
whole through continual reflection, analysis and education.
In 2001 the CIW launched the Campaign for Fair Food, an in-
novative worker-led campaign to address human rights abuses
in the Florida tomato industry. The campaign identifies the
links between brutal farm labor conditions in the fields and
the multi-billion-dollar retail food brands that buy the pro-
duce grown in those fields. By mobilizing both farmworkers
and consumers, the Campaign for Fair Food seeks to pressure
retail food giants to improve farmworker wages and to reward
growers who respect farmworker rights. This ongoing effort
is bringing about considerable industry-wide change and im-
proving conditions at 34,000 harvesting jobs in Florida’s to-
mato fields.

PRINCIPLE

Choose your target wisely p. 114

CASE

Modern-Day Slavery Museum p.338
Taco Bell boycott p. 372

SOURCES

Coalition of Immokalee Workers website

http://www.ciw-online.org

Left Turn, “Coalition of Immokalee
Workers - A Model of Strategic Organizing:
An Interview with the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers," August 1, 2005

http://trb.la/xlEmSu

SmartMeme, Redmagining Change:

An Introduction to Story-Based
Strategy, by Doyle Canning and
Patrick Reinsborough, 2009

http://trb.la/ABaDFt

PRACTITIONERS

TACTIC

Detournement/culture jamming p. 28

PRINCIPLE

Know your cultural terrain p. 142

THEORY

Memes p. 242

SOURCES

Robbie Conal website

http://www.robbieconal.com

Robbie Conal

Robbie Conal is an LA-based guerrilla poster artist known for
his grotesque portraits of political figures. Conal studied art
at Stanford in the ’70s, but his politics led him outside the tra-
ditional art establishment and toward guerrilla art. The film-
maker Clay Walker made a documentary about him in 1992
(“Post No Bills”), and in 2004 he worked with Mear One and
Shepard Fairey on the “Be the Revolution” national postering
campaign, protesting Bush and the Bush wars. His latest work
focuses on the financial crisis: one poster shows the CEOs of
Goldman, JP Morgan, etc., wrapped in the tentacles of a gi-
ant pink squid while testifying before Congress, which itself
is underwater. The caption reads “Big Fish Eat Little Fish: You
Can Bank On It.” In his “Guerrilla Etiquette + Postering Tech-
niques” manifesto, Conal lays out three key principles of his
work: mass distribution, counter-infotainment and empower-
ment. He also reminds volunteers not to poster on privately
guarded property because the folks in uniform could lose
their jobs.

PRINCIPLE

The real action is your
target's reaction web

THEORY

Ethical Spectacle p. 230

CASE

Teddy bear catapult p. 380

SOURCES

Deconstructionist Institute for
Surreal Topology website

http://tao.ca/~wrench/dist

The Deconstructionist Institute for Surreal Topology

The Deconstructionist Institute for Surreal Topology (DIST),
a loose-knit group based in Canada and the UK, specializes in
“Revolutionary Studies and the advancement of Applied Au-
tonomy.” At the Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in
Quebec City in 2001, their Permanent Revolution pamphlet
inspired the formation of a Medieval Bloc of protesters who
built a giant teddy-bear-launching catapult. In 2002, when the
G8 chose to meet in the mountain resort of Kananaskis in
Western Canada to avoid protests, DIST issued a White Pa-
per calling for protesters to adapt “Ewok tactics” a la Return
of the Jedi to shut down the summit: “Maximum disruption
combined with maximum cuddliness.” DIST has shown that
research and a sense of humor can be the perfect antidote to
both stale tactics and state repression.

412

PRACTITIONERS

Design Studio for Social Intervention

Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) describes itself
as a research-and-development unit of the nonprofit sector.
Founded in 2005 by Kenneth Bailey, then a fellow at MIT’s De-
partment of Urban Design, DS4SI tries to create methods for
changing the way people experience cities and public spaces.
Their actions frequently use spectacle to reclaim public space
that has become hostile or inaccessible to those who need
it: they organized giant tug-of-war games in violent Boston
neighborhoods and subway stations, for example. Their “Let’s
Flip It” campaign turned a well-known symbol of Boston gang
violence — baseball hats whose colors indicate allegiance to
a particular block or project — into a symbol of nonviolence,
by designing an all-white, no-allegiances hat and a youth-to-
youth network to distribute it. They also repurpose familiar
actions in new theoretical frameworks; their Food Not Bombs-
like Public Kitchen was billed as an effort to dissociate the con-
notations of “cheap” and “run-down” from the word “public.”

PRINCIPLE

Reframe p. 168
Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

THEORY

Action logic p. 208

SOURCES

Design Studio for Social
Innovation website

http://ds4si.org

The (new) Diggers

Named for a group of seventeenth-century English agrarian
communists, the Diggers were a San Francisco-based anar-
chist guerrilla action group active in the mid to late 1960s.
Opposed to private property and market exchanges, the
Diggers promoted a Free City through artistic direct actions
and street theater, as well as by opening free clinics, provid-
ing free housing, distributing free food and opening free
stores. Their media-savvy street happenings helped to publi-
cize the hippie counterculture. For instance, a 1967 parade
called “The Death of Hippie” involved carrying a coffin with
the words “Hippie — Son of Media,” thereby forcing the news
media to communicate the Diggers’ message that “hippie”
was a media fabrication.

TACTIC

Prefigurative intervention p. 82

PRINCIPLE

No one wants to watch a
drum circle p.156

THEORY

Temporary Autonomous Zone p. 270

SOURCES

The Diggers archives

http://www.diggers.org/overview.htm

PRACTITIONERS

PRINCIPLE

Create offline-online synergy web

THEORY

Intellectuals and power p.240
The tactics of everyday life p.268

SOURCES

East Los Angeles Dirigible Air
Transport Lines, “Transborder
Immigrant Tool"

http://trb.la/xtF2qS

RT Mark, “Computerized resis-
tance after the big flood,” by Stefan
Krempl http://trb.la/zguypg

Ricardo Dominguez

Ricardo Dominguez is a theorist and practitioner of electronic
civil disobedience, the co-founder of Electronic Disturbance
Theater (EDT), and the co-director of thing.net, an ISP for
artists and activists. EDT created the FloodNet System, a par-
ticipatory network for conducting “virtual sit-ins” — denial-of-
service attacks in which large numbers of activists slow down
or crash a target website by simultaneously and repetitively at-
tempting to access it. Between 1998 and 1999, in over sixteen
virtual sit-ins carried out in solidarity with protesting Zapatista
communities, Dominguez targeted the official websites of the
U.S. Border Patrol, White House, G8, and Mexican Embas-
sy. Dominguez also deployed virtual sit-ins in solidarity with
students protesting at UC San Diego, where he teaches visual
art. His technology continuously reloaded the UC president’s
home page as hundreds of protesters typed “transparency”
into its search box. The jammed website responded with an
error message: “File not found.” More recently, EDT 2.0 modi-
fied the GPS applet of low-cost mobile phones to become a
compass-like “Transborder Immigrant Tool” for undocument-
ed immigrants completing border crossings.

414

PRINCIPLE

Don't mistake your group
for society p.130
Escalate strategically p.134

THEORY

Revolutionary nonviolence p.xxx

SOURCES

The Earth First! Journal

http://www.earthfirstjournal.org

The Anarchist Library, Ecodefense:
A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching

http://trb.la/xb8qit

Activist Cash, “Earth First!"

http://trb.la/yyNecy

Earth First!

Earth First! is a worldwide movement of small, bioregionally-
based groups of radical environmentalists. Formed in 1979,
Earth First! claims to have no members, only “believers” — self-
proclaimed deep ecologists who equally value and protect all
life by acting locally. Their actions range from public education,
grassroots organizing and involvement in the legal process,
to blockades, tree sits and demonstrations. In alignment with
their motto, “No compromise in defense of Mother Earth,”
some Earth First! ers go a step beyond civil disobedience, sabo-
taging industrial equipment in ecodefense. Such nonviolent
and “productive” forms of property destruction include road
reclamation, destruction of genetically modified crops and
tree spiking. Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching —
a compilation of articles and letters sent to the Earth First!
Journal by dozens of individuals, edited by Dave Foreman and
published by Earth First! Books — outlines methods for de-
commissioning bulldozers, flattening tires, burning machinery
and pulling out survey stakes, and discusses the security, safety,
strategy and justification behind such actions.

PRACTITIONERS

Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler is a Tony Award-winning author, playwright and
anti-violence feminist activist. She wrote The Vagina Mono-
logues, a play inspired by conversations with friends and based
on interviews with over 200 women about their experiences
of sexuality. The play has been translated into over forty-eight
languages and performed in 140 countries, and inspired En-
sler to create V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence
against women. V-Day educates and raises funds and public
attention through media campaigns, annual gatherings and
benefit productions of Eve’s plays. V-Day also built the City of
Joy, a community for survivors of gender violence in Bukavo,
Democratic Republic of Congo. Eve Ensler has written The
Good Body, a play about obsession with women’s appearance,
and I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around
The World, a collection of original monologues about and for
girls. She writes regularly for Glamour Magazine, The Guardian,
Marie Claire, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Utne Reader and
O Magazine.

PRINCIPLE

Think narratively p.186
Challenge the patriarchy
as you organize p .108
Make the invisible visible p.152

SOURCES

V-day website

www.vday.org

Huffington Post, “Eve Ensler"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler

Coco Fusco

Coco Fusco is a New York-based, Cuban-American interdis-
ciplinary artist and writer, and the director of Intermedia
Initiatives at Parsons The New School for Design. Her videos,
multimedia installations and public performances address
issues of race and international relations. For example, she
issued replicas of passbooks, once required of black South
Africans entering white neighborhoods during apartheid, to
serve as proof of payment for the 1997 Johannesburg Biennial.
Her more recent work deals with the role of female interro-
gators in the war on terror. In her 2005 public performance
“Bare Life Study #1,” Fusco dressed as a military policewoman,
assumedauthoritativepositionsoverhftyshackledyoungpeople
(played by drama students) in orange inmate uniforms, and
commanded them to scrub the floor in front of the U.S.
Consulate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with their toothbrushes. The
performance was based on reports that American soldiers
order prisoners to clean their cells with their toothbrushes for
hours at a time.

PRINCIPLE

Make the invisible visible p.152
Balance art and message p.100

CASE

The Couple in the Cage p. 312

SOURCES

Coco Fusco website

http://www.thing.net/~cocofusco

MuseumMuseum, “Coco Fusco "

http://trb.la/yNTxoh

PRACTITIONERS

TACTIC

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

THEORY

Cultural Hegemony p. 222

CASE

The Couple in the Cage p. 312

SOURCES

Go mez-Peha's La Pocha Nostra website

http://www.pochanostra.com/home

Video: “Spanish Lesson"

h ttp://trb. la/zpgVWF

Video: “El Leonard Cojen [Cohen] de Tijuana"

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=AXRdN9Fp3wQ

Guillermo Gomez-Pena & La Pocha Nostra

Guillermo Gomez-Pena is a Mexico City-born performance
artist, activist and writer who came to the United States
in 1978. A MacArthur Fellow and American Book Award
recipient, his mixed-genre work ranges from short videos
and public and interactive performances to newspaper
and radio commentaries. He explores cross-cultural is-
sues, including borders, citizenship, immigration and the
politics and power of language. For example, in his video
“El Leonard Cojen (Cohen) de Tijuana” he mixes Spanish
and English with the intention of making a monolingual
American feel incompetent. In 1993 Gomez-Pena found-
ed the international collaboration and network of artists
“La Pocha Nostra,” with over thirty associates worldwide.
Their perhaps most significant contributions are interac-
tive “living museums” that parody colonial practices of
representation, much like Gomez-Pena’s earlier “Couple
in the Cage.”

TACTIC

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

PRINCIPLE

Brand of be branded p. 104
Balance art and message p. 100

SOURCES

Center for Artistic Activism,
“Gran Fury talks to Douglas Crimp"

http://trb.la/yTTQNz

Queer Cultural Center, AIDS graphics

http://trb.la/Ajlc7L

New York Public Library,
Gran Fury Collection

http://trb.la/x1DHTc

Gran Fury

Gran Fury formed after members of ACT-UP came together in
1987 to create the art installation “Let the Record Show....” In
the New Museum’s window on Broadway they displayed a neon
sign reading “SILENCE=DEATH” underneath a pink triangle.
This is today perhaps the emblem most associated with ACT-
UP and AIDS activism in general. Several ACT-UP members
decided to continue creating visuals and worked continuously
from 1988 to 1994 as Gran Fury, named after the Plymouth
automobile favored by the New York City Police Department.
Their posters and printed ads intervened in public spaces wide-
ly covered by the media and were soon largely accepted and
funded by the institutional art world. Examples are the “Kiss-
ing Doesn’t Kill” (1989) poster series Gran Fury plastered on
NYC buses, depicting kissing couples of mixed race and sex
along with the words “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indif-
ference Do.” For the forty-fourth Venice Biennale they created
two controversial pieces: one of the pope, and the adjacent im-
age of a gigantic erect penis titled “Sexism Rears Its Unpro-
tected Head.”

416

PRACTITIONERS

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is the largest environmental NGO in the world,
and the most publicly visible. Today it’s based in Amsterdam
and works in forty-five countries, but it started with Vancouver
activists sailing to Amchitka Island in 1971 to protest nuclear
testing. Greenpeace’s hallmark is a combination of disruptive
action and “bearing witness,” best evidenced by their fleet
of three ocean-faring boats used to interrupt and document
everything from coal mining to Arctic oil dumping. They’re
also good in court. One amazing example is the 2008 Kings-
north Case, in which six Greenpeace activists were arrested for
painting “Gordon” — meaning then-Prime Minister Gordon
Brown — on the smokestack of a coal power plant before try-
ing to shut the plant down. The defense argued that stopping
emissions from Kingsnorth would ultimately protect property
elsewhere in the world, and in an unprecedented application
of the “lawful excuse” defense, the six were acquitted. Green-
peace’s policy of refusing donations from corporations and
governments is well publicized, and it supports itself mostly
through individual contributions solicited online and by its
street teams.

TACTIC

Blockade p. 14

PRINCIPLE

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Do the media's work for them p. 124

SOURCES

Greenpeace USA website

www.greenpeace.org/usa/en

Guerrilla Girls

The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous women who take
the names of deceased female artists as pseudonyms, describe
themselves as the “conscience of the art world.” Wearing gorilla
masks, they use humor, facts and “outrageous visuals” to expose
sexism, racism and corruption and “show that feminists can be
funny.” In time for the 2002 Oscars, they unveiled anti-film
industry billboards in Hollywood depicting the “Anatomically
Correct Oscar: He’s white & male, just like the guys who win!”
Their actions were inspired by a 1985 MOMA exhibit titled “An
International Survey of Painting and Sculpture” that featured
all white artists, of which thirteen out of 169 were women. No
one took responsibility for the discrepancy, so the Guerrilla
Girls publicly showed these records on posters in the streets of
SoHo. Since then, they have created stickers, billboards, and
posters, taught workshops internationally and written several
books including The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the
History of Western Art.

TACTIC

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

PRINCIPLE

Challenge patriarchy
as you organize p. 10 8

THEORY

Cultural hegemony p. 222

SOURCES

Guerrilla Girls website

http://www.guerrillagirls.com

PRACTITIONERS

PRINCIPLE

Everyone has balls/ovaries
of steel p. 136
Use the Jedi mind trick p. 194

THEORY

Society of the spectacle p. 26 6

SOURCES

New York Times, “Abbie Hoffman, 60's
Icon, Dies; Yippie Movement
Founder Was 52,” April 14, 1989

http://trb. la/w7Edkm

JoFreeman.com, “Levitate
the Pentagon [1967]"

http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/

jofreeman/photos/Pentagon67.html

Abbie Hoffman

Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) was an activist, writer and
founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies). Hoff-
man’s creative pranks and protests, which combined civil
disobedience with the whimsical spirit of the counter-cul-
ture, made him a national symbol of the 1960s rebellions.
In 1967 Hoffman and a group of collaborators showered
the NYSE trading floor with handfuls of dollar bills thrown
from the gallery above, creating chaos among traders and
temporarily suspending trading. Later that year, during
a massive anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C.,
Hoffman led a group of protesters in an attempt to levi-
tate the Pentagon and dispel evil spirits from the building
by singing and chanting. In the wake of the 1968 riot in
Chicago, Hoffman, along with seven others, was arrested
on conspiracy charges. Hoffman’s antics during the trial
effectively conveyed his political message and turned him
into a household name.

TACTIC

Artistic vigil p.10

PRINCIPLE

Use the power of ritual p. 198
No one wants to watch a
drum circle p. 156

SOURCES

Celebrate the Dream website

http://www.celebratethedream.org

I Dream Your Dream

“I Dream Your Dream” is an interactive ritual designed to be
performed on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
“I Have A Dream” speech, each August 28. Participants write
down their own dreams for a better world on a colored rib-
bon, then exchange these dreams with a stranger. The other
person’s dream is tied around the participant’s wrist. By prom-
ising to wear it until it falls off, the participant in effect makes
a promise to protect the other’s dream. In doing so, partici-
pants recommit themselves to the cause and to each other; the
political is personalized in a very intimate way. “I Dream Your
Dream” was inspired by the art installation “I Wish Your Wish”
by Rivane Neuenschwander.

418

PRACTITIONERS

Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere (IE) is a New York group that stages cho-
reographed but spontaneous-looking performances in public
spaces, often with assistance from their huge army of loyal
volunteers. IE was founded in 2001 by Charlie Todd, who met
many of his “Senior Agents” while performing at the Upright
Citizens Brigade. Their performances, which they call “mis-
sions,” have no particular political goals. Instead, IE tries to
turn the boring monotony of urban life on its head and instill
a sense of wonder and absurdity in the familiar scenes of city
life. Past actions included the famous “Frozen Grand Central,”
in which hundreds of volunteers simultaneously “paused” for
five minutes in the middle of the station; the “MP3 Experi-
ments,” where people followed recorded instructions to dance,
jump, and sing in sync; site-specific mini-musicals; a fake U2
concert; and a tuxedo-wearing bathroom attendant at the
Times Square McDonald’s.

TACTIC

Flash mob p. 46
Invisible theater p. 66

PRINCIPLE

Anyone can act p. 98

SOURCES

Improv Everywhere website

http://improveverywhere.com

Improv Everywhere youtube channel

www.youtube.com/user/

ImprovEverywhere

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)

Founded in 2004, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is an
advocacy group comprising around 1,800 active-duty military
personnel and veterans from all branches of the military who
have served since 9/11, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The group calls for withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan, reparations for the human and structural
damage suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and full benefits,
adequate healthcare (including mental health) and other
support for returning servicemen and women. Named for
the 1971 Winter Soldier hearings, “Winter Solider: Iraq & Af-
ghanistan — Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations” was a
four-day event organized in 2008 by the IVAW at which more
than 200 veterans gave testimony about their experiences as
soldiers. “Operation First Casualty” was a series of dramatic
IVAW actions, designed to demonstrate the reality of war, in
which uniformed veterans conducted mock patrols in major
American cities.

PRINCIPLE

Bring the issue home p. 106
Take leadership from those
most impacted p. 180

THEORY

Ethical Spectacle p. 230

SOURCES

Iraq Veterans Against the War website

http://ivaw.org

Video: “Operation First Casualty"

http://trb.la/yM1SIV

PRACTITIONERS

419

TACTIC

Flash mob p. 46

PRINCIPLE

Simple rules can have grand results p. 17 6

THEORY

Alienation effect p. 210

SOURCES

Wikipedia, “Allan Kaprow"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Kaprow

Inventivity, “Tail Wagging Dog"

http://trb.la/y8J0gZ

The Museum of Contemporary Art,
Los Angeles, Allan Kaprow, Art as Life

http://www.moca.org/kaprow

Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow (1927-2006) was an American performance artist
and teacher whose “Happenings” helped shape the New York
performance art scene in the 1950s and ’60s, and were hugely
influential on later artists. Happenings are characterized by
lack of formal structure and defiance of the traditional per-
former/audience relationship; everyone is an audience mem-
ber and a performer simultaneously. Here are some typical
examples of the more than 200 Happenings: Participants took
Polaroids of each other and left them in the performance
space; a giant room made of ice gradually melted from visi-
tors’ body heat; fife and drum music played in a high school
gym while people kicked balls around; visitors rearranged
the furniture in a gallery at the New York Museum of Mod-
ern Art; participants tied greenhouse-grown leaves to the bare
branches of trees. “Objects of every sort are materials for the
new art,” Kaprow wrote. “Paint, food, chairs, electric and neon
lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other
things which will be discovered by the present generation of
artists...”

TACTIC

Hoax p. 54

PRINCIPLE

Make it funny web
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200

SOURCES

The Realist archive

http://www.ep.tc/realist

Paul Krassner

Paul Krassner is a satirist and journalist who played a major role
in the evolution of late twentieth-century American political
humor. He’s best known as founder and editor of The Realist,
the taboo-exploding satirical magazine that ran for forty years.
Though he was a stylistically versatile writer, he’d worked at
Mad magazine in college and retained a sense of the satirical
grotesque. One of his articles, “The Parts That Were Left Out
of the Kennedy Book,” described Lyndon Johnson penetrat-
ing the dying JFK’s bullet hole wound — and for a while many
people thought it was true. As a prankster, he distributed “Fuck
Communism” bumper stickers at the height of the Vietnam
War. As an editor, he worked with Norman Mailer, Joseph Hell-
er and Ken Kesey (Krassner was a member of Kesey’s Merry
Pranksters), and as an activist he co-founded the Yippies with
Abbie Hoffman.

420

PRACTITIONERS

Suzanne Lacy

A California-based feminist activist, teacher, and leading fig-
ure in the public art movement, Suzanne Lacy creates socially
oriented artworks that engage with community and audience
members on multiple levels. Her projects include and com-
bine exhibits, live performances, narratives, video and audio,
workshops, public speak-outs, symposia and demonstrations.
Lacy largely creates her work within a specific community and
spatial context and collaborates with local politicians, grass-
roots activists, artists and other people directly affected by the
chosen subject. Her work has mainly focused on feminist and
urban issues. “3 Weeks in May” (Los Angeles, 1977) addressed
rape by combining personal narratives and performative heal-
ing rituals with help hotlines, public self-defense classes and
the mapped display of locations of rapes reported to the Los
Angeles Police Department in a three-week time frame. Since
1991 Lacy has been the executive director of TEAM (Teens +
Educators + Artists + Media Makers) in Oakland, California.
She served in then-Mayor Jerry Brown’s education cabinet and
was an arts commissioner for the city. Lacy is the Chair of Fine
Arts at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, and ed-
ited the book Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (1995).

TACTIC

Artistic vigl p. 10

PRINCIPLE

Use the power of ritual p. 198

THEORY

Intellectuals and power p. 240

SOURCES

Suzanne Lacy website

http://www.suzannelacy.com

“Nature, Culture, Public Space," Artist
Statement by Suzanne Lacy

http://trb.la/zp6D0u

Ladies Against Women

Ladies Against Women (LAW) was a street performance group
that used satire to ridicule the anti-feminist backlash of 1980s
Reagan-era America. In ruffled dresses, white gloves and pill-
box hats, the Ladies would hand out consciousness-lowering
manifestos that included such action items as “Restore virgin-
ity as a high-school graduation requirement” and “Eliminate
the gender gap by repealing the Ladies’ Vote (Babies, Not Bal-
lots).” LAW welcomed new recruits, but only if they brought
pink permission slips signed by their husbands.

PRINCIPLE

Make it funny web

Don't dress like a protestor p. 126

CASE

Billionaires for Bush p. 296

SOURCES

Ladies Against Women website

http://www.ladiesagainstwomen.com

PRACTITIONERS

TACTIC

Mass street action p. 68

PRINCIPLE

Make the invisible visible p. 152

THEORY

Expressive and
instrumental actions p. 232

SOURCES

Lesbian Avengers website

http://www.lesbianavengers.com

ACT-UP NY, “The Lesbian
Avengers Handbook"

http://trb.la/yejnyC

TACTIC

Street theater web

PRINCIPLE

Balance art and message p. 100

THEORY

The tactics of everday life p. 268

SOURCES

Living Theater website

http://www.livingtheater.org

The Lesbian Avengers

The direct action group Lesbian Avengers was founded in 1992
by longtime New York lesbian activists Ana Simo, Sarah Schul-
man, Maxine Wolfe, Anne-christine DAdesky, Marie Honan
and Anne Maguire, who focused on issues of lesbian survival
and visibility in public life. Their goal: avoid “stale tactics” and
create daring and participatory confrontation that flaunts
“lesbionic outrageousness” instead. At its peak mid-decade,
the Avengers had more than fifty chapters worldwide. At the
NYC memorial of a lesbian and a gay man, both killed by skin-
heads throwing a Molotov cocktail into their Oregon home,
the newly organized Avengers ate fire and chanted, “The fire
will not consume us. We take it and make it our own.” Fire eat-
ing has since become an Avenger trademark. Their most en-
during legacy, however, is the Dyke March, still held across the
country annually one day before the Pride Parade. The first
Dyke March, organized without a permit in Washington, D.C.,
on April 24, 1993, in collaboration with ACT-UP and other
Washington, D.C., area groups, was “the largest lesbian event
in the history of the world,” according to Sarah Schulman.

The Living Theater

A major player in the establishment of an experimental and
politically engaged Off-Broadway culture, the Living Theater
was founded in 1947 by Judith Malina and Julian Beck. Their
early work was legendary in New York for its willingness to push
boundaries: everyone who saw “Paradise Now” in 1968 remem-
bers the piles of naked audience members and actors (some of
whom were arrested for indecent exposure). They’re also im-
portant as early American adopters of playwrights like Brecht,
Lorca, Pirandello, William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein.
After four of their New York theaters were closed by govern-
ment bureaucracies, the troupe went nomadic, embarking on
what became a forty-year tour of Europe and the world. Their
sacred text is French playwright Antonin Artaud’s manifesto
The Theater and Its Double, which exalts immediate emotional
experience. Although they’ve frequently performed political
theater in unconventional venues like prisons and steel mills,
today they have a home again in the Lower East Side.

PRACTITIONERS

Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD)

The Los Angeles Poverty Department, a community theater
company, was founded in 1985 by director/performer John
Malpede. The first performance group in the nation made
up principally of homeless people, the group is committed to
creating high-quality, challenging performances and multi-
disciplinary artworks that tell the first-hand narrative of Skid
Row’s community. Projects include “The Skid Row History
Museum” at the Box Gallery in LA’s Chinatown, the “Festival
for All Skid Row Artists,” and large-scale collaborations like
“UTOPIA/dystopia — 220 Glimpses” and “Agents and Assets,”
which integrated panel discussions with the community. The
LAPD has created residency projects internationally, working
with community drug recovery programs, shelters, policy ad-
vocates and arts organizations, and has won awards includ-
ing the LA Weekly Theater Award, New York’s Bessie Creation
Award, and the Otto Award for Political Theater.

PRINCIPLE

Think narratively p. 18 6
Take leadership from
the most impacted p. 180

THEORY

Theater of the Oppressed p. 272

SOURCES

Los Angeles Poverty Department website

http://lapovertydept.org

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a group of Argentine human
rights activists formed in response to the campaign of disap-
pearances, torture and murder carried out during the military
junta’s 1976-1983 “dirty war.” The junta “disappeared” over
30,000 people while denying any knowledge of their where-
abouts. Day after day, the Mothers assembled in the Plaza de
Mayo, facing the presidential palace, to protest the disappear-
ance of their children. They wore headscarves with the names
of their children and often carried photographs of the disap-
peared. Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo played a critical role in
organizing resistance to the junta and in its eventual collapse
in 1983.

TACTIC

Artistic vigil p. 10

PRINCIPLE

Make the invisible visible p. 152
Use the power of ritual p. 198

SOURCES

University of Texas at Austin,
“Madres de Plaza de Mayo"

http://trb.la/wjaP8H

International Center on Nonviolent
Conflict, “Madres de Plaza de Mayo”

http://trb.la/ylckaV

PRACTITIONERS

423

TACTIC

Nonviolent search and seizure p. 76

PRINCIPLE

Make the invisible visible p. 152

THEORY

Points of intervention p. 250

SOURCES

Operation SalAMI, “Resist the AMI!"

http://www.ainfos.ca/98/
apr/ainf os00293.html

Multi-Monde Productions,
“Operation SalAMI”

http://www.pmm.qc.ca/salami/

ENGLISH/opers.html

Global Nonviolent Action Database,
“Canadian Activists Demand Transparency
in FT AA negotiations, 2000-2001”

http://trb. la/xigN8r

Operation SalAMI

Operation SalAMI was a Montreal-based direct action
group conceived as a campaign against the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI). The MAI was a global
investment treaty being privately worked out between mem-
ber countries of the Organization for Economic Co-oper-
ation and Development and the International Chamber of
Commerce. The name SalAMI includes this agreement’s
French acronym AMI (or “friend”) preceded by “Sal,”
meaning bad or dirty. In May 1998 SalAMI surrounded
and delayed the Conference de Montreal on Globalized
Economies. The ensuing global mobilizations actually led
to the shelving of the agreement. Since then, Operation
SalAMI has collaborated to organize conferences, teach-ins
and two festive May 1 vigils in front of the Montreal Stock
Exchange. In 2001, after the government failed to produce
secret negotiating texts for the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA) treaty, Operation SalAMI surrounded
the Department of International Trade and Foreign Affairs.
Climbing barricades, they declared they had a “Citizens’
Warrant for Search and Seizure.” Five days later, the
International Trade Minister released the full FTAA draft.
Negotiators missed the 2005 deadline for the implementation
of the FTAA.

TACTIC

Happening web

PRINCIPLE

Don't dress like a protestor p. 126
The real action is
your target’s reaction web

SOURCES

Swarthmore College Computer Society,
“Orange Alternative"

http://trb.la/wdPc3V

The Orange Alternative

The Orange Alternative was a 1980s-era underground protest
movement in Poland. It used street happenings and absurdist
provocations to ridicule the Communist regime and promote
independent thinking. Their actions, enormously popular
with students who often found Solidarity marches stiff and
boring, included graffiti, distributing toilet paper (a consum-
er product in short supply at the time), and singing Stalinist
hymns while holding hands around the orangutan cage at
the Warsaw Zoo. Most memorably, they organized a march
of 10,000 people in orange dwarf hats. “How can you treat
a police officer seriously,” notes founder Waldemar Fydrych,
“when he is asking you the question: ‘Why did you participate
in an illegal meeting of dwarfs?”’

424

PRACTITIONERS

Otpor

Otpor — “resistance” in Serbian — was a civic youth move-
ment started by a small group of student activists at Belgrade
University that was active from 1998 until 2003. Otpor played
a key role in overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic’s government
and in Serbia’s transition to democracy. In just two years of
struggle against Milosevic, Otpor ’s numbers grew from eleven
to 60,000. Otpor used street theater, dilemma actions, poster
propagation and pranks to satirize, embarrass and undermine
the legitimacy of the government. For example, activists in Nis
held a “birthday party” for Milosevic with prank gifts like a
one-way ticket to the Hague, a prison uniform and a cake in
the shape of a red star. Even the group’s iconic clenched fist
logo lampooned the WWII Serb Partisans’ symbol. Although
the group was provocative, they maintained a staunch and
disciplined commitment to nonviolence which ultimately
dissuaded security forces from attacking them, regardless of
orders. Since Milosevic’s ouster in 2000, the group has dis-
seminated the lessons and tactics of their movement through
trainings and consultations. Most recently, Egypt’s April 6
Movement received training from Otpor on how to conduct
peaceful demonstrations, how to respond to the threat of state
violence and how to mobilize people.

PRINCIPLE

Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Take leadership from the most
impacted p.180

THEORY

Pillars of support p. 24 8
The social cure p. 264

SOURCES

Foreign Policy, “Revolution U,"
February 16, 2011

http://trb.la/yqbSKx

A Force More Powerful [film]

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org

Preemptive Media

Founded in 2002, Preemptive Media (PM) is a group of artists,
activists and technologists that produces projects drawing atten-
tion to the ubiquity and invisibility of consumer data. PM’s goal
is to make their audiences more aware of the information they
unknowingly divulge to governments and corporations and the
ways in which the collection of that data often occurs without
consent. One of PM’s most famous projects, the “Swipe Bar,” was
a mobile installation designed to look like a local watering hole.
When customers showed their IDs and swiped their Visas, Pre-
emptive Media served them not only beer but also a report of all
the data stored on those cards. PM thinks of its projects as “beta
tests,” and some of them — like a website to aggregate short news
reports sent from hundreds of cell phones — resemble pared-
down precursors of more popular technologies (like Twitter).
But the “beta” quality of their actions, and the willingness to
experiment, is very much the point.

TACTIC

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28

PRINCIPLE

Make the invisible visible p. 152
By any media necessary web

SOURCES

Preemptive Media website

http://preemptivemedia.net

ArtSlant, “Preemptive Media"

http://trb.la/zhOXnz

PRACTITIONERS

425

The Provos

TACTIC

Prefigurative intervention p. 82
Hoax p. 54

PRINCIPLE

Put your target in a
decision dilemma p. 16 6

SOURCES

High Times, “Dutch Provos," January 1990

http://trb.la/xqYEIu

The Provos, active in the mid-1960s, were a Dutch countercul-
ture movement heavily influenced by anarchism. The Provos
undermined the legitimacy of the authorities with nonviolent
pranks and happenings designed to provoke violent police re-
sponses. A royal wedding in 1965 was the occasion for the most
audacious prank. Before the wedding, the Provos spread wild
rumors about schemes to dump LSD into Amsterdam’s water
supply, drug the royal horses, and the like. The government
responded by mobilizing 25,000 troops to guard the royal
parade. On the day of the wedding, it took nothing but a few
smoke bombs to provoke a massive riot. The Provos also devised
a series of White Plans: utopian, often whimsical schemes and
policy proposals that targeted absurd and undesirable aspects
of capitalist society. The White Bicycle Plan, for instance, called
for Amsterdam to ban cars from the central city and to distrib-
ute thousands of free, white bicycles for public use. The Provos
began implementing the plan by placing fifty white bicycles on
the street, which were promptly confiscated by the police, who
asserted that free bicycles were an invitation for thieves.

TACTIC

Detournement/Culture jamming p. 28
Street theater web

THEORY

Commodity fetishism p. 218

SOURCES

Reverend Billy and The Church
of Earthalujah website

http://www.revbilly.com

Village Voice, “Rage Against the Caffeine:
Reverend Billy Preaches the Anticorporate
Gospel to Starbucks,” April 18, 2000

http://trb.la/xUEo1K

New York Times Magazine, “Reverend
Billy's Unholy War,” August 22, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/

magazine/reverend-billy-s-unholy-war.html

Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah

Reverend Billy is part performance art, part guerrilla theater
and part political activism. Devised by Billy Talen in 1997 as a
one-man performance piece, the Reverend Billy character first
appeared in Times Square preaching that “Mickey Mouse is
the Antichrist!” Styled after conservative televangelists in his
white dinner jacket over a black T-shirt, priest’s collar and Elvis-
esque hairdo, Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah —
a group of green-robed gospel singers formerly known as The
Church of Stop Shopping — have performed countless retail
interventions in the United States and abroad. Their targets
have included Disney Stores, Starbucks, Walmart, Nike, Home
Depot, Barnes & Noble, JPMorgan Chase and UBS.

426

PRACTITIONERS

Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan, or the “Peace Mom,” is best known
for her peaceful anti-war vigil “Camp Casey.” After her 24-year-
old son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in the
Iraq war in April 2004, President Bush met in Fort Lewis with
Cindy and other grieving parents to pay them his respects.
According to Sheehan, Bush behaved disrespectfully at this
meeting, forgetting her deceased son’s name and leaving her
questions unanswered. In response she co-founded Gold Star
Families for Peace, and in August 2005 she camped outside
then-President Bush’s Crawford Texas ranch for twenty-six
days demanding answers and another meeting with him (nei-
ther of which occurred). With her action, Sheehan attracted
national and international support and media attention. She
has since participated in anti-war protests across the nation,
given speeches, written articles, and run against House Speak-
er Nancy Pelosi as an independent candidate after Pelosi did
not take initiative to impeach Bush.

Situationist International

Situationist International (SI) was either one of the twentieth
century’s most important and successful cadres of anti-capi-
talist revolutionaries, or a bunch of petty, self-marginalized
megalomaniacs waging an inconsequential decades-long war
of words — depending on your perspective. SI began as a
group of avant-garde artists but rapidly evolved into a politi-
cal organization that, at its peak, heavily influenced the May
1968 general strike in France. Si’s organizational culture was
persistently tumultuous. Recounting its history of backbiting,
excommunications, factional splits, personal feuds, esoteric
debates and bitter polemics would require a separate book.
For instance, Letterist International, one of Si’s parent organi-
zations, emerged out of a heated debate over the artistic status
of Charlie Chaplin. Having expelled all of Si’s founding mem-
bers, the group’s intellectual leader Guy Debord dissolved the
group in 1972. Si’s chief legacy is its social and political the-
ory, which has influenced a broad range of individuals, orga-
nizations and movements, including Reclaim the Streets, the
Weathermen and Adjusters.

PRINCIPLE

Put your target in a decision dilemma p. 1 66
Lead with sympathetic character p. 146
Shift the spectrum of allies p. 172

SOURCES

Gold Star Families For Peace website

http://www.gsfp.org

THEORY

Society of the Spectacle p. 2 66
Political identity paradox p. 254

CASE

Reclaim the Streets p. 350

SOURCES

Situationist International Archives

http://www.nothingness.org/SI

Bureau of Public Secrets,

“May 1968 Graffiti"

http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm

PRACTITIONERS

427

TACTIC

Hoax p. 54

PRINCIPLE

Play to the audience that
isn't there p. 150
Make it funny web

SOURCES

Joey Skaggs website

http://joeyskaggs.com

Joey Skaggs

Joey Skaggs (born 1945) is an American artist notable for his
prolific hoaxes and media pranks. In one (in) famous hoax,
Skaggs put an ad in the Village Voice advertising a dog brothel.
After receiving a blizzard of interested phone calls, he hired
actors (dogs and people) and invited reporters to tour the fa-
cility. WABC TV even aired a piece on the brothel that was
slated to win an Emmy but was disqualified when Skaggs re-
vealed the hoax. Other pranks over the last several decades
have included taking hippies on sightseeing tours of suburban
Queens after Skaggs became annoyed at suburbanites touring
the Lower East Side to gawk at hippies, attempting to burn
a “Vietnamese nativity scene” to protest the war in Vietnam,
tying a fifty-foot bra to the U.S. Treasury building on Wall
Street, and dozens of others.

TACTIC

Direct action p. 32

PRINCIPLE

Take leadership from the
most impacted p. 180

THEORY

Action logic p. 208

SOURCES

The Gelman Library at George
Washington University, “Mitch Snyder"

http://trb.la/zsCqYW

First Church Shelter, “Mitch Snyder"

http://trb.la/A2M3AD

National Coalition for the Homeless,
“Remembering Mitch Snyder"

http://trb. la/wvpfOo

Mitch Snyder

Mitch Snyder (1946-1990) was an American advocate for the
rights of homeless folks. His career as an organizer began while
he was serving time in prison following a 1970 arrest for auto
theft. Snyder, along with Phillip and Daniel Berrigan, partici-
pated in hunger strikes to protest the treatment of prisoners in
Vietnam. In 1973 Snyder joined the Community for Creative
Non-Violence (CCNV) in Washington, D.C., then an anti-war
group. After the end of the Vietnam war, CCNV began to ad-
minister services to homeless Washingtonians, and Snyder be-
gan the work that ultimately made him famous. In addition
to participating in hunger strikes, holding public funerals for
homeless people, and organizing housing takeovers to protest
municipal and federal housing policy, Snyder participated in
numerous pranks and artistic hijinks. In one case, he and sev-
eral of his colleagues dressed in business suits, infiltrated a Na-
tional Conservative Caucus and dove into the world’s largest
apple pie — intended by the NCC to symbolize a bigger piece
of the pie for everyone — howling “It’s all for me!’”

428

PRACTITIONERS

El Teatro Campesino

El Teatro Campesino — “The Peasants’ Theater” — is a Cal-
ifornia-based company whose performances focus on the
social and political experience of Latinos in the U.S. They
staged their first productions on flatbed trucks as part of Ces-
ar Chavez’s Delano Grape Strike in 1965, and collaborated
with Peter Brook to stage performances for farm workers in
the early 1970s. In the late ’70s they shifted into more heavily
produced spectacles, the most famous being artistic director
Luis Valdez’s “Zoot Suit,” about the false murder conviction of
twenty-one young Chicanos in Los Angeles, which became the
first play by a Latino to go to Broadway. Their latest work has
expanded to address broader political questions like corporate
power and the environment.

UK Uncut

UK Uncut is a tax justice movement that emerged in late 2010
in response to proposals by the British government to sharply
reduce social spending. UK Uncut highlights the disparity
between the government’s aggressive austerity measures and
the preferential tax treatment enjoyed by big businesses by
targeting retail stores and bank branches owned by the worst
corporate tax dodgers. Its colorful, creative actions have shut
down dozens of banks and stores through banging pots, blow-
ing whistles, chanting and singing. To highlight cuts to specific
social services, protesters have held read-ins to protest library
closures and sleep-ins to protest cuts to housing subsidies, and
they have transformed targeted stores into hospitals, daycares,
classrooms and homeless shelters. UK Uncut has also inspired
similar actions in the United States, carried out under the
name U.S. Uncut, which began with a national day of action
on Lebruary 26, 2011.

TACTIC

Street theater web

PRINCIPLE

Balance art and message p. 100
Know your cultural terrain p. 142

SOURCES

El Teatro Campesino website

http://www.elteatrocampesino.com

Video archive of El Teatro Campesino

http://cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu/

ETCList.html

TACTIC

Flash mob p. 46

PRINCIPLE

Choose your target wisely p. 114

THEORY

Hashtag politics p. 238

SOURCES

UK Uncut website

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk

PRACTITIONERS

429

Voina

TACTIC

Guerilla theater web

PRINCIPLE

Reframe p. 1 68
Use your radical fringe to slide
the Overton window p. 200

SOURCES

Free Voina

http://en.free-voina.org

Don't Panic Online, “Russian Art
Anarchists Explain Themselves"

http://trb.la/zWZr9o

Voina (“war”) is a Russian performance art collective that
uses guerrilla street theater as a vehicle for political protest.
The group has projected a skull and crossbones onto the na-
tional government building, painted a 65-meter erect penis
on a drawbridge facing the state security agency’s headquar-
ters, overturned police cars, and thrown chickens at McDon-
ald’s workers to “alleviate their boredom.” One performance,
staged a few days before Dmitry Medvedev was elected presi-
dent, consisted of six couples having sex in Moscow’s state
biological museum under a banner that read “Fuck for the
heir, Little Bear,” a play on Medvedev’s surname, which means
“bear” in Russian. In 2010, the group’s co-founders, Oleg Vo-
rotnikov and Leonid Nikolayev, were arrested for an anti-cor-
ruption performance that involved overturning seven police
cars and were held for three months before being charged
with a crime. At the time of this writing, they are charged with
inciting hatred against a social group — the police — and face
up to seven years in prison.

TACTIC

Mass street action p. 68
Street theater web

PRINCIPLE

This ain't the Sistine Chapel p. 188

SOURCES

Washington Action Group website

www.wagthis.org

Washington Action Group

Since 1998, Washington Action Group (WAG) has creatively
harnessed the energy of cultural work to nonviolently build
people and community power with street theater, stilt walking,
graphic visuals, banners, giant props/puppets, pageantry and
civil resistance actions and trainings. WAG formed the core of
the organizing, training and art teams for the World Bank /
IMF actions in 2000 that brought 40,000 protesters along with
a fifteen-foot tall Goddess of Liberation and a humongous
papier-mache Structural Adjustment Machine into the DC
streets. They have provided guidance to many national and lo-
cal groups looking to make a splash effectively and safely at the
intersection of art and politics. WAG is dedicated to using a
diversity of creative resistance and cultural expression to help
activists be more effective.

430

PRACTITIONERS

Women in Black

Women in Black (WiB) began in 1988 in Israel as a response
to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and to
the Palestinian Intifada, but spread rapidly to countries all
around the world. WiB’s website states: “Women in Black is a
world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice
and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other
forms of violence. . .. We are not an organization, but a means
of communicating and a formula for action.” WiB actions of-
ten take the form of regularly scheduled silent vigils where
participating women wear all black, stand in a public place,
carry placards and pass out leaflets. WiB groups have also
used many forms of nonviolent direct action, including block-
ing roads and trespassing on military bases.

TACTIC

Artistic vigil p. 10

PRINCIPLE

Simple rules can have grand results p. 176

THEORY

M ernes p. 242

SOURCES

Women in Black website

http://www.womeninblack.org/en/vigil

The Ya Basta Association

The Ya Basta Association was an organization of Italian anti-
capitalists. The group is famous primarily for originating the
tute bianche tactic. In 1994, the mayor of Milan ordered the
eviction of protesters from the Leoncavallo social center, de-
claring, “From now on, squatters will be nothing more than
ghosts wandering about in the city!” Protesters responded by
wearing tutes bianches — white overalls — to reconquer the
center. The meme spread rapidly and tute bianche blocs were
a visible component of many subsequent anti-globalization
protests. Symbolically, the white overalls were meant to chal-
lenge the invisibility of people on the margins of social life
— the unemployed, the homeless and the illegal immigrants.
Practically, the white overalls were often padded or worn along
with shields made of plexiglas and helmets to resist the blows
of police while the bloc marched through barrier lines and
perimeter fences. Tute bianche blocs became a kind of collec-
tive protection force, marching in compact formations to pre-
vent dissipation by security forces, creating a sense of security
for protesters who feared injury. As a result, protester injuries
decreased significantly, and police were forced to shift from a
dissipation to a containment tactic.

PRINCIPLE

Don't dress like a protester p. 126
Maintain nonviolent discipline p. 148
Take risks, but take care p. 182

SOURCES

The Fifth International, “Tute Bianche"

http://trb.la/zGYB3b

Dario Azzellini, “Tute Bianche”

http://www.azzellini.net/node/2466

PRACTITIONERS

THEORY

Expressive and instrumental actions p. 232
Floating signifier p. 234
Revolutionary nonviolence p. 260

SOURCES

Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional

http://ezln.org.mx

Wikipedia, “Zapatista Army
of National Liberation"

http://trb.la/wgAtud

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation

Although the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)
began as, and in many ways remains, an armed uprising
against the Mexican state, the EZLN frames its goals and ac-
tions in political, rather than military, terms. The movement’s
anti-leader Subcomandante Marcos has written: “In a war, the
decisive thing is not the military confrontation but the politics
at stake in the confrontation. We didn’t go to war to kill or be
killed. We went to war in order to be heard.” Marcos’ prolific
writing, along with the movement’s persistent outreach efforts
and savvy media campaigns, have inspired radicals all over the
world to demand autonomy and rise up against their govern-
ments and corporate overlords.

432

PRACTITIONERS

Write your own practitioner profile

The modular format of Beautiful Trouble allows the collection
to expand endlessly to reflect new tactical breakthroughs,
underrepresented areas of struggle and overlooked pearls
of wisdom.

Become part of Beautiful Trouble. Use this template to
write up your own creative-activism insights. Submit your own
module for publication on the Beautiful Trouble website here:

http://beautifultrouble.org.

PRACTITIONERS

433

RESOURCES

50 MINDBOMBS NO BEAUTIFUL
TROUBLEMAKER SHOULD DO WITHOUT

10 GOOD BOOKS
ABOUT BIG IDEAS

Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige, The Next American Revo-
lution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century (Berke-
ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011)

Jan Cohen-Cruz, ed., Radical Street Performance: An
International Anthology (New York: Routledge, 1998)

Stephen Duncombe, ed., The Cultural Resistance Reader
(London and New York: Verso, 2002)

David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest (New York: Penguin Group, 2007)

bell hooks, Feminist Theory From Margin to Center (London:
Pluto Press, 2000)

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
(New York: Picador, 2007)

Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the
Third World (New York: New Press, 2008)

David Solnit, Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and
Build a Better World (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2004)

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing
Without Organizations (New York: Penguin, 2008)

10 GOOD BOOKS
ABOUT ORGANIZING

Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall and Steve Max, Organizing for Social
Change (Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press, 1996)

Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough,

Re -.Imagining Change: An Introduction to Story-Based Strategy
(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2010)

434

Robert Bray, SPIN Works: A Media Guidebook for Communicating
Values and Shaping Opinion (San Francisco: Independent
Media Institute, 2000)

Si Kahn, Organizing: A Guide for Grassroots Leaders (Silver
Spring, MD: National Association of Social Workers, 1991)

Rinku Sen, Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and
Advocacy (Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass [Wiley and Sons], 2003)

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Revolution
Will Not be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
(Brooklyn, NY: South End Press, 2007)

Hillary Moore and Joshua Kahn Russell. Organizing Cools
the Planet: Tools and Reflections to Navigate the Climate Crisis
(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2011)

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York and London:
Continuum, 2006)

Judy Ancel and Jane Slaughter, A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2:
How To Fight Back Where You Work — and Win! (Detroit: Labor
Notes, 2005)

Crimethlnc, Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook
(Salem, OR: Crimethlnc Far East, 2006)

Beyond the Choir
http://beyondthechoir.org

Colours of Resistance Archive

http://www.coloursofresistance.org

Midnight Special Law Collective
http://www.midnightspecial.net

New Organizing Institute

http://neworganizing.com

Organizing for Power

http://organizingforpower.wordpress.com

Organizing Upgrade

http://www.organizingupgrade.com

10 GOOD

ORGANIZING

WEBSITES

435

Praxis Makes Perfect
http://joshuakahnrussell.wordpress.com

The Ruckus Society
http :/ /ruckus, org

Training for Change

http://www.trainingforchange.org

Waging Nonviolence
http://wagingnonviolence.org

CorpWatch

http://www.corpwatch.org

Global Nonviolent Action Database
http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu

International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org

Know Your Meme
http://knowyourmeme.com

Little Sis

littlesis.org

The Meta-Activism Project

http://www.meta-activism.org

Multinational Monitor
http://multinationalmonitor.org

Open Secrets

http://www.opensecrets.org

Tactical Media Files
http://www.tacticalmediafiles.net

10 GOOD BOOKS
RESEARCH WEBSITES

Center for Media Justice
http://centerformediajustice.org

436

10 Tactics. Directed by the Tactical Technology Collective. 2009.
http://www.informationactivism.org/en

After Stonewall. Directed by John Scagliotti.

New York: First Run Features, 1999.
http://firstrunfeatures.com/afterstonewalldvd.html

Bringing Down a Dictator. Directed by Steve York.

A Force More Powerful Films, 2002.
http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/hlms/bdd

The Corporation. Directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer
Abbott. New York: Zeitgeist Films, 2003.
http://www.zeitgeisthlms.com/hlm.php?
directoryname=corporation

The Fourth World War. Directed by Rick Rowley.

New York: Big Noise Films, 2003.

http://www.bignoisehlms.com/hlms/features/

89-fourth-world-war

A Force More Powerful. Directed by Steve York.

A Force More Powerful Films, 1999.

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/hlms/afmp

Flarlan County U.S.A. Directed by Barbara Kopple.

New York: Cabin Creek Films, 1976.

http://www.cabincreekhlms.com/hlms_harlancounty.html

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media.

Directed by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick.

New York: Zeitgeist Films, 1992.

http://www.zeitgeisthlms. com/him. php?directoryname=
manufacturingconsent

This is What Democracy Looks Like. Directed by Jill
Friedberg and Rick Rowley. New York: Big Noise Films, 2000.
http://www.bignoisehlms.org/hlms/features/100-
whatdemocracylookslike

We: A Documentary Featuring the Words of Arundhati Roy.
Created anonymously,
http ://www.weroy. org

10 GOOD FILMS

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C0NTRI00T0R 1)108

EDITORS ANDREW BOYD is an author, humorist and veteran of creative campaigns
for social change. He led the decade-long satirical media campaign
“Billionaires for Bush.” He co-founded Agit-Pop Communications, an
award-winning “subvertising” agency, and the netroots movement The
Other 98%. He’s the author of three books: Daily Afflictions, Life’s Little
Deconstruction Book and the creative action manual The Activist Cookbook.
Unable to come up with with his own lifelong ambition, he’s been crib-
bing Milan Kundera’s: “to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the
utmost lightness of form.” You can find him at andrewboyd.com.

DAVE OSWALD MITCHELL is a writer, editor and researcher camped out
at the intersection of the economic and ecological crises. He edited the
Canadian activist publication Briarpatch Magazine from 2005 to 2010, and
his writing has been published in Rabble, Reality Sandwich, Rolling Thunder
and Upping the Anti. His interests include brevity, tactical media and
going elsewhere.

CONTRIBUTORS RAE ABILEAH is the co-director of CODEPINK Women for Peace, a peace
and justice group working to redirect the nation’s resources from milita-
rism to healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activi-
ties. Rae lives in San Francisco, and is a contributing author to several
books including: 1 0 Excellent Reasons Not to foin the Military; Sisters Singing;
Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists', and Corporate
Complicity in Israel’s Occupation. When not raising a ruckus for justice, she
enjoys surfing, hiking and cooking quiches. She can be reached at rae@
codepink.org

RYAN ACUFF grew up in Chicago, IL but has been in Rochester, NY for the
last six years participating in community organizing and pursuing gradu-
ate work in psychology (M.A) . Currently his organizing is focused on home-
lessness, foreclosure and affordable housing rights, including work with
University of Rochester Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Genesee
Valley Earth First!, Food Not Bombs, Rochester Free School, Healthcare
Education Project, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Rochester
Police Accountability Coalition, Rochester Copwatch, Occupy Rochester
and Take Back the Land Rochester.

CELIA ALARIO is a communications strategist, spokesperson coach and
seasoned troublemaker. She enjoys collaborating with grassroots organiza-
tions, filmmakers, artists and authors, and scheming about how to engage
key audiences and change the world with stories, while tapping both
traditional media/marketing and new media/web 2.0 tools. Alario teaches

438

Environmental Communications Strategies and Tactics at UC Santa
Barbara, and serves on the board of directors of the Independent Tele-
vision Service (ITVS) and the smartMeme Training and Strategy
Collective, and on the advisory boards of BEN (Business Ethics Network)
and IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) . Her sock puppet alias tweets at
www.twitter.com/ celiaalario

PHIL ARONEANU been working on solving the climate crisis since he was
sixteen. In 2008, with author/activist Bill McKibben and a small group of
fellow students, he helped launch the innovative 350.org campaign. In the
lead-up to the 2009 United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, 350.org
pulled off over 5,200 simultaneous public events in 181 countries in what
CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in history.” Since
then, Phil has led national and global campaigns to push back against cor-
porate polluters and build an authentic grassroots climate movement. Phil
currently serves as U.S. Campaign Director at 350.org

PETER BARNES is an entrepreneur and writer who has founded and led
several successful companies. Barnes began his career as a reporter on
The Lowell (Mass.) Sun, and was subsequently a Washington correspon-
dent for Newsweek and West Coast correspondent for The New Republic. In
1976 he cofounded a worker-owned solar energy company in San Fran-
cisco, and in 1985 he cofounded Working Assets Long Distance (now
Credo Mobile) . His books include Capitalism 3. 0: A Guide to Reclaiming the
Commons (2006), Who Owns the Sky? (2001), and Pawns: The Plight of the
Citizen-Soldier (1972).

JESSE BARRON is a fiction writer and critic living in Brooklyn. His reviews
have appeared in the New York Observer and the Daily, and he worked with
The Faster Times on the media campaign for the One Young World activ-
ists’ summit in Zurich. Since graduating from Harvard in 2009, he’s been
at work on a novel about Americans in Dubai.

ANDY BICHLBAUM (AKA Jacques Servin) got his start as an activist when,
as a computer programmer, he inserted a swarm of kissing boys in a
shoot- ’em-up video game just before it shipped to store shelves, and found
himself fired, famous, and hugely amused. Now, Andy helps run the Yes
Lab for Creative Activism as part of his job as professor of subversion at New
York University. Bichlbaum once flew down the Nile in a two-seater airplane,
bringing a live goat to a remote Sudanese village as a hostess gift for a home-
coming party. (The party was fun and the goat was insanely delicious.)

NADINE BLOCH has walked hundreds of miles, trained volunteers, built
giant puppets, climbed skyscrapers, dangled off bridges, wrangled spoke-
councils, juggled media, developed curricula, and sailed oceans, all in
support of social and economic justice. Her affiliations include work with
Bread & Puppet Theater, Greenpeace, Labor Heritage Foundation, Non-
violence International, Ruckus Society, HealthGAP and Housing Works.
Nadine’s work explores the potent intersection of art and politics; where
creative cultural resistance is not only effective political action, but also a
powerful way to reclaim agency over our own lives, fight oppressive systems,
and invest in our communities — all while having more fun than the other side!

439

KATHRYN BLUME grew up improvising radio dramas on a tape recorder
and pretending the trees were talking back. A little while later, she finagled
a self-designed degree from Yale in environmental studies and theater, and
it’s been pretty much stuff like that ever since. She is co-founder of the ra-
dio show Earth on the Air, and the Lysistrata Project, the first worldwide the-
atrical event for peace. She has had essays published in numerous books,
blogs, and magazines. Kathryn’s also a solo performer, climate activist,
yoga teacher, wedding officiant, haphazard gardener, and irresponsible cat
owner. Visit her at kathrynblume.com.

L.M. BOGAD is a lifelong creative strategist (guided and goaded by Harpo,
Groucho and Zero), co-founder of the Rebel Clown Army, founding di-
rector of the Center for Artistic Activism (West Coast), and professor of
political performance at the University of California at Davis. He writes,
performs, and strategizes with the Yes Men, Agit-Pop, and La Pocha Nostra.
Author of Electoral Guerrilla Theater: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements,
Tactical Performance (forthcoming), the play COINTELSHOW: A Patriot Act,
and works about the Spanish Civil War, Haymarket Square Riot, Pinochet
coup, and the Egyptian revolution, he has led his Tactical Performance
workshops in revolutionary Cairo, Reykjavik, Buenos Aires, and across the
USA and Europe.

JOSH BOLOTSKY is an online organizer, blogger, comedic performer/writer
and occasional voiceover artist, currently serving as new media director
for Agit-Pop Communications and its Other 98% Project. While at Agit-
Pop, he has worked on creating and spreading projects that include the
RepubliCorp effort for MoveOn, and Target Ain’t People, the very first
Depeche-Mode-inspired take on the Citizens United decision to break a
million views on YouTube. Josh also serves as part of the national volun-
teer collective that manages Living Liberally, a network of progressive so-
cial groups and activist resources in all fifty states. He enjoys vegan chili
and writing about himself in the third person. More atJoshBolotsky.com

MIKE BONANNO (ne Igor Vamos) is a guy from Troy, New York, who
spent his formative post-childhood years making mischief. Mike once
purchased hundreds of talking GI Joe and Barbie dolls, switched out
their voice boxes, and created a media firestorm that had God-fearing
Americans up in arms about the shadowy “Barbie Liberation Front.” This
escapade caught the attention of lazy queer hackers like Bichlbaum, and
together they formed the Yes Men. When not involved in tomfoolery,
Bonanno is also a professor of media art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti-
tute, with a Scottish wife and two babies.

KEVIN BUCKLAND is an artist, artivist organizer and the “Arts Ambassador”
for the grassroots global network 350.org. He has worked with the Inter-
national Youth Climate Network to promote creative communication and
beauty in the call for climate justice across the globe. Harkening on the
call to “make this movement as beautiful as the planet we are fighting to
save,” he employs comedy, tragedy, farce, satire and a great deal of card-
board in his attempts to end empire and globalize justice. Videos, writings
and participatory projects can be seen atwww.ctrlartshift.org

440

MARGARET CAMPBELL is a freelancer of many trades, but carries with her
the spirit of engaged journalism, and a closely-held belief in the capacity of
public art to heal and unite. She has had the opportunity to travel toward a
deep understanding of her home community of Minneapolis/ St. Paul, and
to work extensively on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in Northwest-
ern MN on media and environmental justice initiatives. She is a staunch
supporter and budding practitioner of the earnestly-funny approach to ac-
tivism advocated in this book. She is currently stuck somewhere between
the Mini Apple and the Big Apple.

DOYLE CANNING was struck by a tear gas canister in the streets of Seattle
in 1999, and has never been the same since. She is a creative strategist
with a deep commitment to building broad-based movements for social
justice and an ecological future. Doyle is co-director of smartMeme.org,
a national strategy center. She delivers training, coaching, facilitation
and framing to high-impact networks who are taking on greedy corpo-
rations, corrupt politicians, racist laws and polluting policies. Doyle is
co-author of Re:Imagining Change with Patrick Reinsborough. She lives with
her husband in Boston, where she enjoys practicing yoga, cooking, and
making music.

SAMANTHA CORBIN is actions director for The Other 98% and national
coordinator of the U.S. Uncut network, as well as a non-violent direct ac-
tion trainer with The Ruckus Society and a founding member of the New
York Action Network. She has coordinated scores of affinity group actions
including banner hangs, blockades, and street theater actions; led several
large-scale actions including the 5,000-strong Powershift 2011; and devel-
oped and delivered countless trainings in creative non-violent direct ac-
tion, affinity group organizing, strategic planning, scouting, and high tech
action. Throughout the fall of 2011, she has been organizing and training
with Occupy Wall Street. Sam is based in New York City.

YUTAKA DIRKS is a tenant and community organizer and writer living in
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been active in anti-poverty, workers
rights and international solidarity movements, as well as offering legal
support to social justice movements through the Movement Defence Com-
mittee of the Law Union of Ontario. His writing has appeared in Upping
the Anti and Briarpatch Magazine as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

STEPHEN DUNCOMBE teaches the history and politics of media at New
York University. He is the author or editor of six books, including Dream:
Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and the Cul-
tural Resistance Reader. Duncombe is a life-long political activist,
co-founding a community-based advocacy group in the Lower East Side of
Manhattan and working as an organizer for the NYC chapter of the
international direct action group, Reclaim the Streets. He co-created
the School for Creative Activism in 2011 and is presently co-director
of the Center for Artistic Activism www.artisticactivism.org He can be
found at www.stephenduncombe.com

441

MARK ENGLER is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus and author of
How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books) .
He can be reached via the website http://www.DemocracyUprising.com.

SIMON ENOCH is director of the Saskatchewan Office of the Canadian
Centre for Policy Alternatives. He holds a PhD in Communication and
Culture from Ryerson University in Toronto. Simon has previously pub-
lished in Foucault Studies, Cultural Logic, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism and
Socialist Studies. He can be reached at simon@policyalternatives.ca More
here: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/offices/saskatchewan

JODIE EVANS has been a peace, environmental, women’s rights and social
justice activist for forty years. She has traveled to war zones, promoting
and learning about peaceful resolution to conflict. She served in the ad-
ministration of California Governor Jerry Brown and ran his presidential
campaigns. She published two books, Stop the Next War Now and Twilight of
Empire, and produced several documentary films, including the Oscar and
Emmy-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America and The People Speak.
Jodie co-founded CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the board chair of
Women’s Media Center and sits on many other boards, including Rainfor-
est Action Network, Institute for Policy Studies, and Drug Policy Alliance.

JOHN EWING is a new media artist merging public art with activism and
education. He worked for two years in El Salvador, using the arts to organize
and inspire dialogue about human rights. Recent projects include Virtual
Street Corners (www.virtualcorners.net), winner of the Knight News Chal-
lenge Award and selected by Americans for the Arts as one of the most
significant public art projects of 2010. He was a co-founder of Ghana
Thinktank (www.ghanathinktank.org), a collaborative, decade-long proj-
ect that was a finalist for the Cartier Award. Ewing has a BFA from Cornell
and an MFAfrom Rhode Island School of Design.

BRIAN FAIRBANKS began his professional journalism career at the age of
fifteen as a staff writer for The Hartford Courant. After serving as an assis-
tant/librarian to Dr. Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, and working
on the collected letters of Hunter S. Thompson and the journals of Jack
Kerouac, he became an activist with Billionaires For Bush and local grass-
roots campaigns in New York City. After several years in the Nixon-esque
political wilderness, he ended up where most of society’s outcasts do: in
television. You can haunt him on Twitter.

BRYAN FARRELL is an editor for Waging Nonviolence, a blog that documents
the many ways people affect positive change around the world every day.
His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, Mother Jones, Slate,
and Grist.

JANICE FINE is associate professor of labor studies and employment rela-
tions at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University
where she teaches and writes about low wage immigrant labor in the U.S.,
historical and contemporary debates regarding federal immigration
policy, dilemmas of labor standards enforcement and innovative union
and community organizing strategies. She is the author of Worker Centers:

442

Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream (2006) published by Cor-
nell University Press and the Economic Policy Institute. Before becoming
a professor, Fine worked as a community, labor, coalition and electoral
organizer for more than twenty-five years.

LISA FITHIAN has organized since 1975, weaving together strategic cre-
ative nonviolent actions, anti-oppression work and sustainable practices
in student, environmental justice, workers rights and peace and global
justice struggles. Whether it was shutting down the CIA, White House,
Supreme Court or the WTO or working on Justice of Janitors, Camp Casey,
Common Ground Relief or Wall Street banks, Lisa has supported tens of
thousands of people in accessing their power and gaining the experience
and skills they need to fight for justice, no matter how great or small the
cause. Her website organizingforpower.org chronicles much of her work
and offers great resources.

CRISTIAN FLEMING is a graphic designer, creative strategist, mischief
enthusiast, and founder of The Public Society, an ethically grounded
branding and design company based in Brooklyn, NY. He also works
often with activist groups like The Yes Men to make stuff happen in the
service of making the world a little better.

ELISABETH GINSBERG holds a master’s in cultural studies and journalism
from NYU. Being an over-educated Dane, she just finished her second Mas-
ter’s degree, this time from the University of Copenhagen. In an attempt
not to dry out completely, she wrote her thesis on Jon Stewart and Stephen
Colbert. She lives in Copenhagen, always in close proximity to her Mac.

STAN GOFF spent over two decades in the U.S. Army, mostly special opera-
tions, from 1970-1996. He has worked as Organizing Director for Democracy
South, a 12-state coalition working on money and politics (1996-2001), and
as an Organizational Development Consultant with Iraq Veterans Against
the War (2004-2006). Married, with four grown children and four grand-
children, he is the author of four books including Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s
Memoir of the U.S. Invasion of Haiti (Soft Skull Press, 2001) and Sex & War
(Lulu Press, 2006). He blogs atferalscholar.org.

ARUN GUPTA is a founding editor of The Independent.

SILAS HARREBYE is finishing up a PhD on creative activism and its po-
tential to facilitate new forms of democratic participation. He has a mas-
ter’s degree in political philosophy and international development. Today
the consultancy skills that he acquired as a project manager in Africa and
Eastern Europe are used to advance social entrepreneurship. Silas writes
for international journals and is frequently used by the Danish media to
comment on the implications of social movements around the world. He
lectures widely on the same topic. He currently lives in Copenhagen with
his partner and their two kids. Write him (silas@ruc.dk) or google his
name to find his profile.

JUDITH HELFAND, a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, is best known for
her ability to take the dark, cynical worlds of chemical exposure, heedless

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corporate behavior and environmental injustice and make them personal,
resonant, highly charged and entertaining. Her films include A Healthy
Baby Girl, its sequel Blue Vinyl (co-directed with Daniel B. Gold) and
Everything’s Cool (also co-directed with Gold). Educator, “field explorer”
and social entrepreneur, Judith co-founded both Working Films and
Chicken & Egg Pictures.

DANIEL HUNTER is a trainer and organizer with Training for Change,
which practices a direct education style rooted in popular education, help-
ing each person find their own wisdom and strategic brilliance. He has
trained thousands of activists including ethnic minorities in Burma/Myan-
mar, pastors in Sierra Leone, independence activists in northeast India,
environmentalists in Australia, and Indonesian religious leaders. As an
organizer, he recently pioneered a successful nonviolent direct action
campaign to halt a politically-connected $560 million casino develop-
ment project — and has led direct action campaigns with local community
groups, national unions, and broad coalitions. His home is west
Philadelphia.

SARAH JAFFE is a journalist, rabblerouser, and Internet junkie. She is cur-
rently an associate editor atAlterNet.org, where she writes about economic
justice, activism, and more. She lives in Brooklyn with a rescue dog and too
many books. You can follow her exploits on Twitter at @seasonothebitch.

JOHN JORDAN was co-founder of Reclaim the Streets (1995-2001) and now
works with the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, a collective
that merges art, activism and permaculture. He loves to apply creativity
to social movements such as Climate Camps and has invented various new
direct action methodologies such as the Rebel Clown Army. Co-author of
We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-capitalism (Verso), he
has just brought out a new book-film with Isabelle Fremeaux exploring
Europe’s utopian communities, Les sentiers de I’utopie (Editions Zones/La
Decouverte). Balancing on the tightrope between art and activism, creativ-
ity and resistance, is where he’s most at home.

DMYTRI KLEINER is the author of The Telekommunist Manifesto, and a con-
tributing artist to the “Miscommunication Technologies” continuing
series of artworks in collaboration with the Telekommunisten Network.
“Miscommunication Technologies” address the social relations embedded
in communications technologies by creating platforms that don’t quite
work as expected, or work in unexpected ways. Most recently, Dmytri has
started an initiative to create an International Debtors’ Party. He can be
followed at http://dmytri.info

SALLY KOHN makes the world safe for radical ideas. As a veteran communi-
ty organizer turned political commentator, Sally makes complex political
issues accessible for everyday audiences. Sally is a grassroots strategist
actively engaged in movement building for equality and justice. She
is a regular on Fox News and MSNBC. Her writing has appeared in
the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN.com, FoxNews.com, Reuters, The
Guardian and the American Prospect, among other outlets. You can find
her at sallykohn.com

444

STEVE LAMBERT’S father, a former Franciscan monk, and mother, an ex-
Dominican nun, imbued in him the values of dedication, study, poverty,
and service to others — qualities which prepared him for life as an artist.
He co-founded the Center for Artistic Activism, was a senior fellow at New
York’s Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology from 2006-2010, devel-
oped workshops for Creative Capital Foundation, and is a faculty member
at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Steve is a perpetual au-
todidact with (if it matters) advanced degrees from a reputable art school
and well-respected state university. He dropped out of high school in 1993.

ANNA LEE is manager of hlmmaker and partner services at Working Films,
one of the leading independent media organizations focused on the art
of engagement. Co-founded by Judith Helfand and Robert West, Working
Films brings persuasive and provocative documentary films to long-term
community organizing and activism. Since joining Working Films, Anna
has worked on national audience engagement strategies for numerous
high profile documentaries. She currently coordinates Reel Engagement
(http://workingfilms.org/article.php?id=302), a ground-breaking, the-
matic residency series for filmmakers and nonprofits. Anna is also an orga-
nizer for educational, racial and environmental justice in Working Films’
hometown of Wilmington, NC where she lives with her husband and son.

STEPHEN LERNER is architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign. He
serves on the executive board of the Service Employees International
Union. He has been a labor and community organizer for over thirty years
and is working with labor and community groups in campaigns that chal-
lenge Wall Street’s and big corporations’ domination of the political and
economic life of the U.S. and global economy. His latest thinking here:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153541/the_99_versus_wall_street%3A_
stephen_lerner_on_how_we_can_mobilize_to_be_the_greedy_l%27s_
worst_nightmare/

ZACK MALITZ, a New Yorker, thinks that fossil fuels belong underground.

NANCY L. MANCIAS is a campaign organizer for CODEPINK. An anti-war
advocate, Mancias has been actively trying to bring the troops home from
their overseas misadventures. She has also been part of the movement
against torture and a proponent of closing the prison in Guantanamo. She
is a believer in accountability for war crimes. She alerts people around the
country when war criminals will be speaking, encouraging them to try to
make a citizen’s arrest or some ruckus. Like many in the anti-war move-
ment, Mancias views her work against drones as a natural extension of her
peace efforts.

DUNCAN MEISEL is a strategic troublemaker who lives in Brooklyn, where
he conspires on how to respond to the impending end of the world. He is
particularly interested in trying to stop the warming of the earth, ending
the impoverishment of America by corporate power, and putting an end to
the prison system as we know it. He is honored to have been a part of cam-
paigns such as Tar Sands Action, U.S. Uncut, The Other 98% and several
different “Billionaires for X or Y” efforts.

445

MATT MEYER is a long-time leader of the War Resisters League and a
founder of the anti-imperialist collective Resistance in Brooklyn (RnB).
His solidarity and writing includes co-authorship with Pan-African pacifist
Bill Sutherland of Guns and Gandhi in Africa, of which Archbishop Tutu
commented: “Sutherland and Meyer have begun to develop a language
which looks at the roots of our humanness.” Meyer’s work in education
includes a ten-year stint as Multicultural Coordinator for NYC’s Alterna-
tive High Schools, and work on the Board of the Peace and Justice Studies
Association. He can be reached at mmmsrnb@igc.org.

TRACEY MITCHELL facilitates creative and courageous conversations for
community organizations. Based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada,
Tracey uses engaging techniques to help groups establish and accomplish
goals, build teams, develop leadership skills and make decisions together.
Tracey is also a forum theater practitioner (aka a “joker”) and has devel-
oped plays with groups around issues of poverty and social justice. She
is also a campaigner, zinester, organizer, reader and board game player.
Tracey lives and works from her home in Saskatoon. For more about Trac-
ey’s work, see www.facilitrace.com.

GEORGE MONBIOT is an English writer, known for his environmental and
political activism. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the
author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Take-
over of Britain (2000) and Bring on the Apocalypse: Six Arguments for Global
Justice (2008). He is the founder of The Land is Ours campaign, which
campaigns peacefully for the right of access to the UK countryside and its
resources. In January 2010, Monbiot founded the ArrestBlair.org website
which offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of
former British prime minister Tony Blair for crimes against peace. Find
him at monbiot.com.

BRAD NEWSHAM is the author of two round-the-world travel memoirs
(All the Right Places and Take Me With You) . Since 1985 he has been a San
Francisco taxicab driver, and is currently the owner/driver of Green
Cab #914. His first human mural (one thousand people spelling out
“IMPEACH!” in 100-foot lettering) was created on Ocean Beach in San
Francisco, on January 6, 2007 — two days after San Francisco’s Nancy
Pelosi became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. More info at
bradnewsham.com.

GABY PACHECO is an undocumented American and an immigrant rights
leader from Miami, Florida. In 2010, she and three friends walked 1,500
miles to bring to light the plight of immigrants in this country, and to
urge President Obama to stop the separations of families and deporta-
tions of DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors)
Act-eligible youth. This walk was dubbed the Trail of DREAMs. She
currently leads a national project, Education not Deportation (END), to
stop the deportation of DREAMers. Gaby is in the process of publishing two
children’s books and aspires to be a musical therapist and work with
people with mental disabilities.

MARK READ is a filmmaker and professor of Media Studies at NYU, with a

446

focus on video as a tactical tool in community organizing. In other incar-
nations, he has also been: a community gardens activist; a Union Square
Park defender; a Critical Mass rider and organizer; a coordinator of large
spectacles in public spaces such as subway train parties; and a core orga-
nizer and propagandist for Reclaim the Streets NYC.

PATRICK REINSBOROUGH is a strategist, organizer and creative provocateur
with over twenty years of experience campaigning for peace, justice, indig-
enous rights and ecological sanity. Patrick has helped organize countless
creative interventions, including mass direct actions that shut down the
Seattle WTO meeting in 1999 and protested the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003. He is the author of numerous essays on social change theory and
practice, including co-writing Reilmagining Change (PM Press 2010). He is
the co-founder of smartMeme, a movement support organization which
harnesses the power of narrative for fundamental social change. He lives
with his family in the San Francisco Bay area. More at www.smartMeme.org

SIMON R0EL holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Copenhagen
where he did not only studied, but also got to socialize with all sorts of
crazies (i.e., philosophers), including the founders of the Nihilist Demo-
cratic Party. Determined to become a film director, he did an intense one-
year filmmaking program at the New York Film Academy, and has recently
completed his short film Urban Caveman, dealing with a dangerous mix of
pizza, porn, and philosophy. Bon appetit.

JOSHUA KAHN RUSSELL is an organizer and strategist serving movements
for social justice and ecological balance. He is an action coordinator, fa-
cilitator & trainer with the Ruckus Society, and has trained thousands of
activists. Joshua has written numerous movement strategy essays, chapters
for several books, and a few organizing manuals, most recently Organizing
Cools the Planet: Tools and Reflections to Navigate the Climate Crisis, with Hil-
ary Moore (PM Press 2011). He has helped win campaigns against banks,
oil companies, logging corporations, and coal barons; worked with a wide
variety of groups in a breadth of arenas, from local resiliency projects,
to national coalitions, to the United Nations Climate Negotiations.

LEONIDAS MARTIN SAURA is a professor at Barcelona University where he
teaches New Media and Political Art. For many years, he has been develop-
ing collective projects between art and activism, some of them well known
internationally (Las Agencias, Yomango, Pret a Revolter, New Kids on the
Black Block...). He writes about art and politics for blogs, journals and
newspapers, has created several documentaries and movies for television
and internet, and is a member of the cultural collective Enmedio (www.
enmedio.info). Last but not least, he is an expert at telling jokes, often
using this divine gift to get free beers and avoid police arrest.

LEVANA SAXON is an organizer and educator with Practicing Freedom,
using participatory action research, popular education and Theater of
the Oppressed to generate collaborative community-led change. Over
the last seventeen years she has trained and facilitated thousands of chil-
dren, youth and adults. Some of the groups she has worked with include
the Paulo Freire Institute, Rainforest Action Network, Center for Politi-

447

cal Education, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Youth In Focus, El
Teatro Campesino and multiple Oakland Public Schools. She currently
co-coordinates the Ruckus Society’s Arts Core and facilitates trainings and
dialogues with the White Noise Collective (www.conspireforchange.org),
which she co-founded. She can be found at www.practicingfreedom.org

NATHAN SCHNEIDER is an editor of Waging Nonviolence, a blog about non-
violent conflict and militarism, as well as of Killing the Buddha, an online
literary magazine about religion and culture. He has written for Harper’s,
The New York Times, The Nation, The Catholic Worker, the Boston Review, The
Guardian, Religion Dispatches, and elsewhere. Most recently, he covered Oc-
cupy Wall Street from the early planning stages, and is finishing a book for
University of California Press about the search for proof of the existence of
God, past and present. His website is www.therowboat.com. |

MAXINE SCHOEFER-WULF recently moved eastward, from the CA Bay Area
to NYC, in search of adventure and a more rugged climate. In her studies,
she focused on art, critical pedagogy, and women’s studies and worked
closely with the UCLA Art|Global Health Center to bring arts-based sexual
health education to L.A. high schools. She has taught self-defense to youth
in Oakland, literacy to children in L.A., and English to tots in Rodenas,
rural northern Germany. She is a firm believer in art that sparks laughs
and conversation and leaves a mark.

KRISTEN ESS SCHURR took her first professional journalism job as a rock
critic in Seattle. She moved on to be Palestine Bureau Chief for KPFA’s
Flashpoints and also corresponded for several Pacifica affiliates while run-
ning the English department of the Palestine News Network in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. Her writing has been translated into seven languag-
es and can be found in independentjournals and the anthology Live From
Palestine. She is now residing in Los Angeles and working on CODEPINK’s
Stolen Beauty (www.stolenbeauty.org) and Boycott SodaStream campaigns
(www.codepink.org/boycottsodastream).

JOHN SELLERS is co-founder of The Other 98%, a founding partner of Agit-
Pop Communications, and president of the Ruckus Society. John worked
for Greenpeace in the early ‘90s before leaving to help start Ruckus. He
has had the great fortune to be integrally involved in powerful peaceful
actions all over the world: from the high seas with the Rainbow Warrior
to the streets of Seattle in the uprising against the WTO. He works from
home on Vashon island in the Puget Sound where he and wife Genevieve
unschool their seven-year-old twins Sam and Hazel. Check him out at
Agit-Pop.com.

RAJNI SHAH is an artist working in performance and live art. Whether on-
line, in a public space or in a theater, her work aims to open up new spaces
for conversation and the meeting of diverse voices. From 2006-2010, she
conducted a three-year inquiry into the relationship between gift and con-
versation in public spaces called small gifts. From 2005-2012 she produced
a trilogy of large-scale performances (Mr. Quiver, Dinner with America and
Glorious) addressing the complexities of cultural identity in the twenty-
first century. If you’d like to know more, please visit www.rajnishah.com.

448

BROOKE SINGER creates platforms for local knowledge to connect, in-
form and conflict with official data descriptions. She works across media
and disciplines, engaging technoscience as an artist, educator, nonspe-
cialist and collaborator. Her work lives on- and offline in the form of
websites, workshops, photographs, maps, installations and performances
that involve public participation in pursuit of social change. She is as-
sociate professor of new media at Purchase College, State University of
New York, fellow at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, and co-founder
of the art, technology and activist group Preemptive Media. For more
visit www.bsing.net.

MATTHEW SKOMAROVSKY is optimistic and googleable.

ANDREW SLACK is a creator, co-founder, and executive director of the
Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) . Andrew was a founding partner, perform-
er, and writer in a traveling comedy group where he produced three
videos that have been seen more than eleven million times. Andrew has
presented his theory of social change, cultural acupuncture, at TEDx in
Rome, NPR’s Morning Edition, Australia’s Today Show, and is being stud-
ied at the University of Southern California. He has written for the LA
Times, CNN.com, Huffington Post, and In These Times. Check out more at
http://thehpalliance.org

PHILLIP SMITH is a digital publishing consultant, online advocacy special-
ist, and strategic convener.

JONATHAN MATTHEW SMUCKER is a long-time participant and organizer in
grassroots movements for social justice, economic equality, ecological san-
ity, and human rights — especially within the global justice movement and
the anti-war movement. He has trained thousands of activists in campaign
strategy, messaging, direct action, and other people-powered frameworks
and skills. He is co-founder and director of Beyond the Choir, a strategy
and training organization. On October 12, 2011, Smucker went to Occupy
Wall Street, where — as Beautiful Trouble goes, to print — he remains, work-
ing primarily with the press and movement building working groups. For
more of his writing: http://beyondthechoir.org

STARHAWK is an author, activist, permaculture designer, and one of the
foremost voices in earth-based spirituality. Her twelve books include The
Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and The Earth Path, and her first pic-
ture book for children, The Last Wild Witch. She has lived and worked
collectively for thirty years, and her book on group dynamics is just out:
The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups. She directs
and teaches Earth Activist Trainings, www.earthactivisttraining.org,
which combine a permaculture design certificate course with a ground-
ing in spirit and a focus on organizing and activism. Her website is
www.starhawk.org.

ERIC STONER is an adjunct professor at St. Peter’s College and an edi-
tor at Waging Nonviolence, a blog that covers nonviolent action around
the world. His articles have appeared in The Guardian, Mother Jones, The
Nation, Sojourners, In These Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, among

449

other publications. He is on the national board of the War Resisters
League and can be found at ericstoner.net.

JEREMY VARON is a professor of history at the New School. He is author of
Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and
Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies (2004) and teaches classes
on social movements and civil disobedience. He is also a longtime activ-
ist, having worked with Billionaires for Bush and, most recently, Witness
Against Torture. He therefore favors, by turns, comedy and tragedy.

VIRGINIA VITZTHUM has written for the Village Voice, Ms., the Washington
City Paper, Elle, Time Out New York and was a columnist for salon.com and
for washingtonpost.com. She’s also written two books, including I Love
You, Let’s Meet, a screenplay, and a play and edited many publications. She
was recently dramaturg/actor/songwriter for Pedagogy of the Oppressed: The
Musical! — an original production by Falconworks theater in Red Hook,
Brooklyn: http://www.redhooktheater.org/ . She currently edits Represent,
a national magazine written by and for youth in foster care: http://www.
representmag.org/. Her website is virginiavitzthum.com.

HARSHA WALIA is a South Asian activist, facilitator, writer and legal
researcher based in Vancouver, occupied Indigenous Coast Salish territo-
ries. She has been active in (unpaid) community-based grassroots migrant
justice, feminist, anti-racist, Indigenous solidarity, anti-capitalist, Palestin-
ian liberation, and anti-imperialist movements for over a decade. She works
with women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the poorest neighbour-
hood in Canada. Her writings have appeared in a number of newspapers,
anthologies and academic journals, and she recently co-created a short film
on poverty and violence against women. Harsha believes in overgrowing
the logic of the state. You can find her at https://twitter.eom/#l/HarshaWalia

JEFFERY R. WEBBER teaches politics at Queen Mary, University of London.
He is the author of Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia
(Brill), and From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous
Liberation and. the Politics of Evo Morales (Haymarket, 2011). He is a socialist
activist in London and sits on the editorial boards of Historical Material-
ism, Latin American Perspectives, and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism.

THE COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS is a community-based farm-
worker organization headquartered in Immokalee, Florida. The CIW’s
Campaign for Fair Food identifies the links between the brutal farm la-
bor conditions in the fields and the multi-billion dollar retail food brands
that buy the produce grown in those fields. By mobilizing farmworkers
and consumers, the campaign seeks to enlist the resources of retail food
giants to improve farmworker wages and to harness their demand to
reward growers who respect their workers’ rights. This ongoing effort is
bringing about considerable industry-wide change and improving condi-
tions at tens of thousands of harvesting jobs in Florida’s tomato fields.

450

451

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

aGit-PDR

comirmunicoTlons

CONVENER

AGIT-POP COMMUNICATIONS is a one-stop creative shop for the progressive
movement. We produce smart real world actions and cutting edge new
media (and now, books, it seems!) for social change campaigns. We use
engaging messages with state-of-the-art tools to inspire people to take
action. Our work has won a Webby, two Contagious Festivals, YouTube’s
Best Political Video of the Year, and Zug’s (Second) Best Political Prank
of the Year, agit-pop.com

THE OTHER 98% was founded on the premise that our economy and democ-
racy should work for everyday Americans, not the elite 2% of bankers, CEOs
and lobbyists who’ve hijacked our democracy and rigged the system to serve
themselves. It’s the middle class that’s too big to fail, and we’re using creative
tactics — both online and in the streets — to, well, rally ourselves to our own
cause. We stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and allied efforts to
build a people-powered movement that can break the corporate strangle-
hold on our democracy and achieve true economic justice, other98.com

Note: Our “98 %” framing preceded the OWS “99 %” by more than a year, but we
are happy to see a slightly tweaked version of this meme taking off worldwide. :-)

tjYES

;.lab

s " larf Meme

&Wno the Story

ORGANIZATIONAL PARTNERS

THE YES MEN called “the Jonathan Swift of the Jackass Generation” by au-
thor Naomi Klein, are best known for infiltrating the world of big business
and doing incredibly stupid things to expose the world’s biggest corporate
criminals. Although fronted by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, their
membership includes hundreds or perhaps thousands of secret agents, all
of whom were recently acquired in a hostile takeover by the Yes Lab.

At the moment, the YES LAB is mainly a series of brainstorms and
trainings to help activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions,
focused on their own campaign goals. It’s a way for social justice organi-
zations to take advantage of all that we Yes Men have learned — not only
about our own ways of doing things, but those we’ve come in contact with
over the decade and a half we’ve been doing this sort of thing. The Yes
Lab has offices and workshopping space at NYU’s Hemispheric Institute
in New York, yeslab.org

SMARTMEME is a national strategy center that offers social justice net-
works and organizations the analysis, training and strategic support to
win the battle of ideas with narrative strategies. SmartMeme re-imagines
methods to achieve fundamental social change with effective story-based
approaches to framing that amplify the impact of grassroots organizing

452

and challenge the underlying assumptions that shape the status quo.
smartmeme.orgof the Citizen-Soldier (1972).

THE CENTER FOR ARTISTIC ACTIVISM is the home for artists, activists and
scholars to explore, discuss, reflect upon, and strengthen connections
between social activism and artistic practice. We facilitate projects and
strengthen networks. Our goal is to make more creative and more effec-
tive citizen activists, artisticactivism.org

BEYONDTHECHOIR is an online space for grassroots change agents — folks
who are engaged in grassroots organizing, activism, advocacy, etc. — to
share practical strategies, tactics and tools. It’s also a place to dig into
deeper social change theory — and to make it practical. There are lots
of great websites that cover and critique the news. BeyondtheChoir.org is
more about figuring out how we can organize ourselves and strategically
intervene, beyondthechoir.org

THE RUCKUS SOCIETY has trained and assisted thousands of activists in
the use of nonviolent direct action. We see ourselves as a toolbox of ex-
perience, training and skills. We provide instruction on the application
of tactical and strategic tools to a growing number of organizations and
individuals from around the world via skill shares and trainings that are
designed to move a campaign forward, ruckus.org

CODEPINK is a woman-initiated grassroots peace and social justice move-
ment working to end U.S.-funded wars and occupations, to challenge mili-
tarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education,
green jobs and other life-affirming activities, http://www.codepink.org

ALLIANCE OF COMMUNITY TRAINERS offers knowledge, tools and skills
to individuals, organizations and communities to empower sustainable
transformation. Whether it be community or organizational develop-
ment, problem solving or conflict resolution, consensus decision-making,
facilitation, strategic campaigns, media and public speaking, alternative
technology, nonviolent action or environmental sustainability, we support
people starting where they are and learning their vision of what they want.
trainersalliance.org

WAGING NONVIOLENCE is a source for news, analysis and original reporting
about nonviolent activism, as well as for discussion of the theory behind
it. These stories often go overlooked by the mainstream media, yet people
are using nonviolent strategies and tactics all around us in response to
the most pressing challenges — and reshaping our world in the process.
wagingnonviolence.org

NONVIOLENCE INTERNATIONAL researches and promotes nonviolent ac-
tion and seeks to reduce the use of violence worldwide. They believe that
every cultural and religious tradition can discover and employ culturally
appropriate nonviolent methods for positive social change and interna-
tional peace that can break the cycle of violence in favor of constructive
rather than destructive outcomes, nonviolenceinternational.net

-CAA-

Center for Artistic Activism

mihng cioUkjI art mtk

CODEPINK

WOMEN FOR PEACE

COMMUNITY

TRAINERS

Waging Nonviolence

Lj J nonviolence

453

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project would never have seen the light of day without
the generous contributions of a horde of people, including,
but not limited to, the following. Kerrie Maynes, Virginia Vitz-
thum and Amy X. Neuberg who provided expert copy editing;
Joe Ready helped with Spanish-to-English translation; Jason
Schultz (UC Berkeley) served as volunteer legal consultant;
Andy Menconi lent his graphic design wizardry.

Marisajahn deserves thanks for kindly loaning us her digi-
tal projector and not getting too pissed-off when Andrew took
way too long to get it back to her. Thanks to Andrew’s pals at
Agit-Pop for letting him take off in the midst of a revolution
to work on this book. A tip o’ the hat to Crimeth.Inc and their
beautifully designed book Recipes for Disaster, which was
an inspiration for the design of our own. http://crimethinc.
com/books/rfd.html

Thanks to Lauren Kelley for surviving Cristian’s hyper-
passion, and to Stephanie Lukito for typesetting ‘till 3am and
then dreaming about the book. Also a big thank you to Bob
Meyers of Greenpeace for invaluable assistance sourcing pho-
tos of direct actions from around the world, and to the many
photographers who put the “beautiful” in Beautiful Trouble
by generously making their images available to us, with big
unrequited love to those who were unreachable.

Thanks to Avaaz.org for trusting us (four times!) with the
keys to their beautiful office space, which served as the perfect
base-of-operations for conducting our book sprints (one in the
middle of a hurricane!). Thanks to the Millay Artist Colony
and the Blue Mountain Center for providing Andrew a place to
write and wrangle. And thanks to the whole team at OR Books
who not only tolerated but encouraged our very unorthodox
approach to collaborative writing and print/digital publishing.

We are extremely grateful for the essential financial support
provided by the Lambent Loundation Lund of the Tides Loun-
dation, the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union

454

of Canada, Jeff Reifman, and our Kickstarter supporters,
especially our three Kickstarter co-publishers:

Chris Simpson
Larry Sakin

Yvonne Tasker-Rothenberg

Finally, thanks to the extraordinarily talented and dedi-
cated group of authors who volunteered their time, words
and best ideas to sing and sweat this book into existence.
Thanks also to Jessica Assaf, Sabrina Banes, Paul Bartlett,
Chris Carlsson, Marco Ceglie, Jasmine Chalashtori, Chuck
Collins, Melanie Crean, Siddjoag, Lauren Kelley, Joel Kovel,
Lauren Larken, Todd Lester, Margaret Maloney, Lissette
Olivares, Michael Pineschi, Gideon Rosenblatt, Lisa Savage,
Marina Sitrin and Alison Thomas.

Photo by Fonta Feingold, modifications by Andy Menconi.

455

INDEX

9/11 10, 11, 25, 52, 64, 79, 114, 257,
278, 289, 419

99% bat signal, the 3, 52, 138,
278-281

accountability 88, 102, 103, 180, 181,
202, 203
Achuar, the 106
ACT-UP 2, 408, 410, 416, 422
action logic 15, 77, 79, 179, 183, 208,
209, 317, 377, 378,
active allies 172, 173, 374
active opposition 172
Adbusters 28, 47, 104, 105, 176, 242,
243, 408, 427
advanced leafleting 8, 9
ageism 192, 193
Agit-Pop 125, 161, 300, 346
Ahava 364-367

AIDS 36, 40, 100, 408, 410, 416
alienation effect, the 41, 210, 211
Alinsky, Saul 170, 190, 193, 200, 232
Allende, Salvador 262
Amnesty International 101, 153, 323
anti-oppression 117, 181, 212-215
April 6 Youth Movement, the 409,
425

Argentina 11, 402
Armey, Dick 392

Art and Revolution Collective, the

409

artistic vigil 10, 11

Artist Network of Refuse and Resist!

410

artstorming 128, 129
Avaaz 22

Bahrain 1

Bambara, Toni Cade 225
Banneker, Benjamin 335, 337
banner hang 12,13
Barralli, Kristin 392
Battle in Seattle, the 2, 68, 126, 248,
252, 286-289, 351
Belarus 46, 138, 351
Bey, Hakim 129, 270
Bhopal catastrophe, the 60, 61, 124,
137, 160, 191, 318-321
Biafra, Jello 41, 124

Big Donor Show, The 294

Bike Lane Liberation Clowns, the 140

Billionaires for Bush, the 3, 36, 40,

60, 126, 177, 199, 243, 252, 296-
299, 346

Billionaires for Wealthcare 297, 346
BLO (Barbie Liberation

Organization) , the 252,282-285
blockade 3, 7, 12, 14-17, 44, 45, 50, 78,
80, 126, 154, 155, 166, 182, 286-
288, 329, 414

Boal, Augusto 48, 62, 66, 98, 272, 273
bonding 135, 255, 305
bottom-liner 122, 123
bourgeoisie, the 158, 211, 216, 272,
359

branding 52, 104, 105, 171, 264
Bread and Puppet Theater, the 189,
409, 410, 412

Brecht, Bertolt 207, 210, 211, 272, 422
bridging 99, 254, 255, 389
Burning Man 2, 83, 271
Bush, George W. 13, 100, 166, 167,
208, 290, 296, 297-299, 304, 308-
311,330,412,427
Buy Nothing Day 199

Camp Casey 166, 167, 208, 209, 427
capitalism 2, 44, 47, 96, 100, 110, 129,
130, 142, 216, 217, 220, 221, 227,
229, 262, 263, 266, 267, 286, 296,
350, 400, 403

Casino-Free Philadelphia 77, 86
Center for Tactical Magic 411
CCNV (Community for Creative Non-
Violence), the 248
Chase Bank 198, 426
Chavez, Cesar 248, 338
Cheney, Dick 18,296-298
Chevron 62, 409
Chile 1, 120, 138, 262, 263, 402
choke points 15
Chomsky, Noam 256, 257, 438
CIRCA (Clandestine Insurgent Rebel
Clown Army) , the 304-306
Citizens’ Posse, the 68, 70, 177, 300,
301

City of Joy, the 415

civil disobedience 32, 50, 71, 84, 118,

166, 183, 208, 228, 290-292, 302,
304, 305, 414, 418
civil rights movement, the 1, 2, 10,

82, 96, 148, 172, 182, 208, 209,
229, 237, 260

CIW (Coalition of Immokalee Work-
ers), the 339, 341, 373, 374, 411
CODEPINK 18, 106, 197, 364
Colbert, Stephen 308-311
commodity fetishism 217-219
commons, the 80, 83, 220, 221, 279,
350

Conal, Robbie 412
consciousness-raising 120
consensus 116, 117, 122, 131, 200, 257
“Couple in the Cage, The” 312-315,
416, 424

creative disruption 18-21, 28, 86, 115,
124, 290, 292, 366
creative petition delivery 22-25
Critical Mass 2, 83, 176, 199
CTM (Center for Tactical Magic), the
8,411

cultural hegemony 222, 223
cultural wealth 220
culture jamming 7, 28-31, 267, 298,
336, 364, 400, 408

Dance Liberation Front, the 139
Davis, Kristin 364, 365
Dawkins, Richard 242
de Certeau, Michel 268, 269
Debord, Guy 28, 230, 266, 267, 427
debt revolt 26, 226, 227, 236, 237
debt strike 24-27

DeChristopher, Tom (Bidder 70) 161,
290, 291

decision dilemmas 14, 16, 20, 45, 74,

77, 80, 88, 138, 139, 148, 149, 154,
166, 167, 183, 319, 357, 394

delegation 122, 123
denial-of-service attacks 3, 414
Design Studio for Social Intervention
413

detournement 28-31, 267, 298, 310,
336, 400

Diggers, the 78, 413

direct action 2, 4, 15, 32-35, 38, 77,

78, 82, 88, 89, 149, 152, 154, 181-

456

INDEX

183, 188, 208, 250, 260, 304, 316,
326, 328, 350, 366, 373, 376, 379,
393, 400, 402, 408, 410, 413, 422,
424, 431

DIST (Deconstructionist Institute for
Surreal Topology), the 412
distributed actions 36-40, 177, 298,
325, 332, 366
diversity of tactics 88, 149
documentaries 164, 165
Dominguez, Ricardo 414
Douglass, Frederick 21, 33, 114, 335
Dow Chemical 60, 61, 98, 99, 124, 191,
195, 318-321

DREAM Act, the 90, 384-387
DS4SI (Design Studio for Social
Intervention) 413
Duhamel, Philippe 76, 166
Duncan, Isadora 321
Dyke March, the 422

Earth First! 2, 79, 145, 414
EDT (Electronic Disturbance
Theatre) 414

Egypt 1, 3, 46, 47, 68, 78, 82, 397, 409,
425

El Salvador 19, 199, 262
electoral guerrilla theater 40-43, 82,
343

Ensler, Eve 415

environmental justice 228, 229
Estonia 100

experts 180, 184, 241, 257, 341
expressive actions 56, 70, 86, 155,

156, 208, 232, 233, 347

Facebook 238, 409
Fannie Mae 44
feminism 108, 109
flash mobs 1, 3, 4, 7, 46, 47, 124, 156,
176

Flint sit-down strikes, the 78
floating signifier 28, 234, 235
foreclosures 25, 44, 80, 112, 140, 141
forum theater 48, 49, 62, 273
Foucault, Michel 207, 240, 241
Freedom Summer 173
Freeman, Jo 102

Freire, Paulo 95, 132, 246, 247, 272

Friedman, Milton 262
FTAA (Free Trade Area of Americas),
the 76,77,380,424
Fusco, Coco 312-315, 337, 415
Fydrych, Waldemar 424

G8, the 236, 305, 351, 414
Gandhi, Mahatma 76, 88-90, 183,

248, 260, 261, 354-356
Gates, Henry Louis 388
Gaza 364,431
general assemblies 103
General Electric 54, 124
General Motors 73, 358
general strike 7, 50-53, 219
Ghost Bike shrines 199
Gingrich, Newt 18, 19, 124, 356
Giuliani, Carlo 237
Giuliani, Rudy 139, 191, 368-370
Gomberg, Tooker 158, 159
Gomez-Pena, Guillermo 312-314, 416
Graeber, David 349
Gramsci, Antonio 207,222,223,254
Gran Fury 100, 407, 416
Grant, Oscar 29, 417
Great American Smokeout, the 52
Great Depression, the 44, 158
Great Upheaval, the 78
Greece 1, 330

Greenpeace 4, 12, 22, 52, 56, 59, 72,
73, 153, 165, 191, 407, 417
Guatinau, Guatinauis 312, 313
Guernica 100
Guerrilla Girls, the 417
guerrilla projection 3, 52, 53, 280
guerrilla theater 2, 40-43, , 64, 67, 82,
118, 125, 161, 343, 346, 347, 359,
364, 366, 426, 430

Haiti 61, 323, 324

hamas 236, 237

hamoq 236, 237

Hanson, Hamza Yusuf 236

Hanson, James 376

Hanson, Pauline 40

happenings 413, 420, 424, 426

Harry Potter Alliance, the 322-325

Hartman, Chris 392

hashtags 47, 142, 238, 239

Havel, Vaclav 75

ITCAN (Health Care for America
Now) 300

Heritage Foundation, the 64
Herman, Edward S. 256-258
hoax 54, 55, 61, 67, 99, 124, 294, 295,
297, 314, 318, 343, 428
Hoffman, Abbie 199, 268, 393, 418,
420

HUD (Housing and Urban
Development) 316, 317
human banner 56-59

“I Dream Your Dream” 418
Iceland 1

identity correction 60, 61, 90, 319, 335
IE (Improv Everywhere) 67, 419
image theater 62, 63, 273
Indigyiados, the 45, 79, 82
INFACT 52
infiltration 47, 64, 65
Institute for Applied Autonomy, the 8
instrumental actions 232
internet, the 36, 177, 220, 221, 243,
277, 296, 325, 331, 351, 402
invisible theater 66, 67
Iraq War, the 3, 12, 18, 52, 55, 100,
107, 166, 208, 249, 257, 309, 330,
331, 419, 427

Israel 11, 190, 193, 364, 366, 367, 431
IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the
War), the 419

IWW (International Workers of the
World), the 50, 398
James, William 142
Jedi mind trick, the 55, 73, 194, 195
Johnson, Hazel 228
Joker, the 48, 49
Justice for Janitors 326, 328
Kaprow, Allan 420
Keystone XL Pipeline, the 238, 291,
376, 377, 379

King, Martin Luther 1,261,418
Kingsnorth Case, the 417
Kirkpatrick, Jeane 19
Kleenex 73
Klein, Naomi 262, 263
Krassner, Paul 420
Kricorian, Nancy 106

457

INDEX

La Vie Campesina 80
Lacy, Suzanne 10,11, 421
LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Depart-
ment), the 423
Lasn, Kalle 408

LAW (Ladies Against Women), the
421

leadership 54, 102, 110, 117, 122, 123,
132, 135, 138, 162, 180, 181, 202,
214, 241, 288, 320, 357, 373, 374
Lennon, Catherine 45
Lesbian Avengers, the 2, 422
Living Theater, the 422
Lukashenko, Alexander 138
lunch counter sit-ins, the 82, 209
Lysistrata Project, the 330-333

Mackinac Center for Public Policy,
the 200

Madison, Wisconsin 3, 86, 396-399
Madres de laza de Mayo 11, 423
MAI (Multilateral Agreement on
Investment), the 424
Malina, Judith vi
Matos, Felipe 384
McDonald’s 236, 419
McKibben, Bill 376
media-jacking 72-75, 347, 393, 394
Medvedev, Dmitry 430
Meese, Ed 64
Mehserle, Johannes 29
memes 169, 242, 243, 245
Merry Pranksters, the 411, 420
Milosevic, Slobodan 104, 264, 425
Mining the Museum 334-337
Minnehaha 72

Minnesota Family Council, the 19
Modern-Day Slavery Museum 338-341
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the 11,
423

MoveOn 3

MST (Landless Workers Movement) ,
the 80

Mubarak, Flosni 46, 68, 409

Narayan, Jayaprakash 260
narrative attack 170
narrative insurgency 170
narrative power analysis 168, 239

National Unemployment Council,
the 44

Navarrete, Cesar 338
Navarrete, Geovanni 338
NCC (National Conservative Caucus)
428

NDP (Nihilist Democratic Party),
the 342-344

neoliberalism 262, 263, 286, 297
neutrals 170-172, 249, 323, 324
Nikolayev, Leonid 430
Nisker, Wes “Scoop” 253
nonviolence 15, 33, 38, 50, 68, 76, 77,
88, 89, 104, 134, 138, 140, 141,

148, 149, 152, 166, 172, 182, 192,
236, 248, 249, 260, 261, 264, 265,
287, 288, 290, 304, 329, 354, 383,
398, 408, 409, 413, 414, 425, 430,
431

Obama, Barack 3, 169, 229, 234, 256,
290, 346, 376-379, 384
OCAP (Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty), the 114
Occidental Petroleum 106
Occupy movement, the 3, 25, 26, 45,
52, 64, 79, 81, 82, 104, 120, 140,
154, 156-158, 200, 203, 234, 235,
238, 242, 266, 278-280, 297, 328,
353, 408

Occupy Regina 333
Oil Enforcement Agency, the 83
Operation SalAMI 76, 424
Orange Alternative, the 407, 424
Organizing Cools the Planet 180
Otpor, 104, 264, 265, 425
“Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War”
vigils, the 10, 11

Overton Window, the 200, 201, 289
Overton, Joseph 200
Oxfam 364

Palestine 11, 79, 193, 366, 367
Palin, Sarah 346
Paris Commune, the 78
PARK(ing) Day 83

participatory action research 246, 247
passive allies 172, 173
passive opposition 172

patriarchy 108-111, 212
pedagogy of the oppressed 246, 247
Pelosi, Nancy 18, 19, 427
People for Community Recovery 228
PGCB (Pennsylvania Gaming Control
Board) , the 86
Philip Morris 52
Picasso, Pablo 100
Pike, John 29, 88
pillars of support 248, 249
Pinochet, Augusto 262, 263
PM (Preemptive Media) 425
Pocha Nostra, La 416
point of assumption 73, 81, 82, 252
point of consumption 250, 251
point of decision 250-252
point of destruction 250, 251
point of production 250, 251
points of intervention 250-252
political identity paradox 156, 233,
253, 254

pranks 1-4, 41, 43, 54, 67, 82, 199,

295, 370, 393, 407, 418, 420, 425,
426, 428

praxis 14, 33, 108, 162, 163, 169, 246,
247, 260

predatory loans 24, 25
Preemptive Media 425
prefigurative intervention 7, 43, 82-
85, 116, 187, 252, 280, 316, 350,
355, 370

proletariat, the 216, 218
propaganda model, the 54, 186,
256-259

Provos, the 407, 426
public filibuster 86, 87
Public Option Annie 64, 125, 161,
346-348

R&R! (Refuse & Resist!) 10
racism 109, 180, 192, 193, 212-214,
228, 229, 250, 314, 335, 337, 417
Rainforest Action Network, the 73,
286

rebel clowning 304-307
Reclaim the Streets 2, 271, 350, 427
reframing 12, 20, 60, 72-74, 152, 168,
169, 238, 252, 307, 346, 393
Republican National Convention, the

458

INDEX

3, 297

Reverend Billy 40, 42, 199, 219, 426
Revolution through the Social Net
work, the 138

ritual 10, 11, 25, 41, 43, 108, 140, 158,
198, 199, 219, 233, 242, 260, 280,
303, 354, 418, 421
Roa, Carlos 384
Rochester, NY 44
Rodriguez, Juan 384
Rowling, J. K. 323
Roy, Arundhati 215
RTS (Reclaim the Streets) 350, 351,
353

Ruckus Society, the 15, 181, 182, 188,
208, 286

Ryan, Charlotte 386

Salt March, the 76, 90, 139, 192,
354-357

Santa Claus Army, the 358, 359
satyagraha 260, 261, 354
SDS (Students for a Democratic
Society) 134,254
Serbia 104, 166, 264, 409, 425
sexism 108, 109, 192, 212, 213, 250,
416, 417

Shah, Rajni 360

Sheehan, Cindy 166, 167, 208, 427
shock doctrine, the 218, 219, 262, 263
SI ( Si tuationist International) 2,28,
230, 267, 427
Singh, Jaggi 381
Skaggs, Joey 428
small gifts 360-364
SNCC (Society Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee) 134,
135, 172, 173
Snyder, Mitch 428
social cure, the 265
social gest 211

social media 2, 238, 239, 366
society of the spectacle, the 28, 266,
267

Solidarity 424

Soviet Union, the 91, 100, 263
Spain 1, 44, 45, 82, 126, 312, 400
spokescouncils 70, 103, 116, 287
Stolen Beauty boycott, the 364-367

structurelessness 102, 103, 122
Subcommandante Marcos 234, 432
subvertisements, subvertising 3, 28
Summers, Lawrence 299
Swipe Bar, the 425

Taco Bell 115, 146, 372-374, 411
tactics of everyday life, the 268, 269
Tahrir Square 68, 69, 237, 409
Take Back the Land 44
Tauzin, Billy 392

TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone)
270

Teatro Campesino, El 429
teddy bear catapult, the 175, 380-383
Theater of the Oppressed 48, 49, 62,
63, 66, 247, 272, 273
Tinnitus, Art 35
Tiny Blockades Book, A 15, 182
Trail of Dreams 384-386
TransCanada 376, 377
trek 90, 91, 355, 384-386
Tubman, Harriet 335
Twitter 46, 47, 142, 238, 365, 366, 425

UFE (United for a Fair Economy)
392-395

UK Uncut 47,238,429
US Uncut 54, 61

V-Day 415

Vagina Monologues, The 415
Vega, Denise 278

viral campaigns 3, 19, 47, 73, 124, 142,
176, 177, 242, 243, 296, 298, 331,
346, 347

Virtual Streetcorners 388-390
Voina 407,430
Vorotnikov, Oleg 430

WAG (Washington Action Group) ,
the 430

Wagoner, Rick 73
Walker, Scott 396-398
Weather Underground, the 134, 135,
427

West Bank, the 364, 431
Whose Tea Party? 392-395
WiB (Women in Black), the 431

Wilde, Oscar 285
Wilson, Fred 334-337
Wisconsin Capital occupation, the 3,
81, 396-399

Women’s Action Coalition 2
WHO (World Health Organization),
the 22

WTO (World Trade Organization),
the 3, 13, 68, 70, 286-289, 351

X, Malcolm 33, 96, 97, 261

Ya Basta Association, the 431
Yes Lab, the 3, 54, 55, 64, 67, 98, 124,
136, 137, 196, 318, 319
Yippies (Youth International Party),
the 210,231,418,420
Yomango 400-403
Zapatistas, the 234, 247, 414, 432
Zedong, Mao 248, 260
Zucotti Park 235

459

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